Stark Spangled Man
by FanficDelivery
Summary: Pepper left Tony. Tony handled this pain the way he handled every setback in his life. Alcohol and women. Lots of both and preferably the combination. Steve understood, in some way, but he didn't think the countless amount of pretty girls should make up for the hole that Ms Potts had left in the battery-charged heart of Iron Man.
1. Chapter 1

**[A/N This is my first shot at an Avengers fanfiction. I'm full of motivation to write more, so let's hope it stays that way! :) Enjoy.]**

* * *

_Stark Spangled Man_

Part 1.

Everybody had moved into the new Stark Tower. Made and designed mostly by Tony himself, but Pepper had had a hand in it.

Which, actually, only made the break-up worse for Tony because a lot of little things in the house reminded him of the woman he loved. _That painting. Horrific modern art, but Pepper had insisted on putting it there._ He would think, his usually carefree and witty personality temporarily hidden behind a veil of sadness.

Of course, Tony being Tony handled this pain the way he handled every setback in his life. Alcohol and women. Lots of both and preferably the combination.

Steve wasn't exactly surprised to see different women leaving Tony's bedroom almost every morning, but that didn't make it any easier to stomach. He had heard about the man, knew what he was like with women. But when Steve first met him, he had been in a somewhat steady relationship with Pepper, and he had seemed like a good man to her. Cared for her, looked after her. Even if Captain America and Iron Man hadn't been able to stand in the same room together without bickering about nonsense, they had respected each other to some length.

Steve had even gone as far as to admire the other man when he saw him fly the nuke into space, risking his life for all of them and having a total selfless near death experience.

But then the break-up with Pepper came. She couldn't handle the pressure. When Tony had become Iron Man, Pepper had known he was in for a difficult and dangerous job. She thought she would be alright with it and was for a while. However, when Tony was offered a place in the Avengers Initiative after all (even though he was not a team player and a textbook narcissist, according to Natasha), things had gotten slightly out of hand. Pepper couldn't handle it and decided some space between them was for the best. Tony had seen it coming, but it was still painful. Because he had never trusted anyone with a relationship before, and now the only person he was willing to share his heart with, had left him alone.

So Steve understood, in some way, but he didn't think the countless amount of pretty girls should make up for the hole that Ms Potts had left in the battery-charged heart of Iron Man.

Tony slept with them, left the room when they could actually fall asleep, and when they woke up in the morning and were greeted by the cheerful voice of Jarvis, the rest of the Avengers were left to show her the way out. Steve wasn't the only one sick of the tear-stained cheeks and the disappointed faces of the heart-broken girls.

* * *

Natasha, Barton, Bruce and Steve were enjoying a well-cooked breakfast by Thor, who was smiling

broadly as he sat down next to them, his own plate filled with an amount of food that could keep the rest of them alive for a couple of weeks. They were all cautiously staring in the direction of the hallway. It was 11:00 and no sounds to be heard yet.

"Maybe this one sleeps a lot?" Natasha offered, waving her bread-filled hand in the direction of the deserted hallway which led to Tony's bedroom, where a disappointed female could be escaping from anytime soon.

"Or perhaps she was kept up for slightly too long last night." Steve mumbled, dropping his usual old-fashioned politeness. Bruce shot him a look. "I'm just sick of it." He explained to Bruce, "He shouldn't be treating women like disposable plastic cups, and we shouldn't be the ones to deal with the aftermath."

"Steve, as much as I think we all agree on that, you know how Tony is. He has never experienced a break-up, and besides, he isn't much worse than he was before you met him. He's always been like this." Bruce reasoned, the only one still capable of keeping up with their friend's behavior.

"_Besides_," A voice known suspiciously well by them because God knows it was used WAY too much, mimicked Bruce, "it's _his _house and you are all free to leave the most awesome, modern and tech-filled house on the planet whenever you want." They all turned in the direction of Tony, who was casually leaning against the wall, arms crossed over the blue glowing arc reactor. While normally a person would be offended, walking in on a negative-tinged conversation about himself, Tony was smirking and proud on having caught them in the act.

"Tony, look. We all owe you since you saved our lives, and the planet, and whatever the fuck else you did I'm not going to list because your ego might just explode. And yes, this is your glorious tower and we are all happy to stay here instead of the small, low-budget, window-and-bathroom-less rooms Fury had us stay in. However," Clint held his hand up before Tony could interrupt, "We still are your guests, and you are to treat us as such." The host in question went to fetch himself a cup of coffee before settling down in a chair between Thor and Steve.

"I don't get what it is that bothers you so much." Tony couldn't keep the smirk from enchanting his lips.

"Live one month with Tony Stark and you'd think the self-statisfied smirk is a permanent part of his face." Came another mumble from Steve.

"Listen here, big guy." Said mr Stark turned around in his seat and looked at Steve in all seriousness. "You are disorientated and alone in this new and modern world and we are the only ones keeping you to your senses. Will you be grateful instead of whining about the amount of women I fuck? I think you're just jealous because the only woman who wanted _you_ continued her life on without you while you were having your beauty-sleep in a block of ice." Tony shot back at him in defense, sarcasm the only thing keeping him from showing how he really felt inside. Steve visibly cringed, and the rest of the team-members watched in horror as the eyes of their Captain began to water. His chair flew back as he abruptly stood, fists clenched and jaw set, piercing blue eyes staring Tony down. He was unable to come up with a reply as frustration, rage and sadness piled up and rendered him senseless. He stormed off towards his room, or, he realized with horror, _Tony's _room in _Tony's _house. Because Tony was right, Steve would be nothing without them, and that's what made it worse. Tony was _always _right.

* * *

"Apologize to him. Now." Pepper, who had heard everything presumably from Natasha, ordered her ex-lover through the telephone.

"Never been my boss, not even my employee anymore and still ordering me around!" Tony huffed into the phone, while he knew she was right. As much as he hated to admit it, because Tony Stark never, ever would admit to being wrong, Pepper was right. He should be apologizing to his Father's favorite creation (even though Howard Stark had told him in a video that his greatest creation had been Tony himself, he refused to believe it). He was sitting on his bed, head leaning on the arm that was resting on his knee. "I know." He then said in serious reply to what was more of an order than a question. "I just don't know how." He mumbled softly. Pepper sighed, probably wondering how she could have ever dated this emotional disaster of a man.

* * *

A soft knock on his door brought Steve to his feet, wondering who in the world would want to talk to him while he was knee-deep in emotional shit. He cautiously opened the door a bit, poking his head out to look for his visitor. When he saw the brunette-with-amazingly-shaped-beard standing outside, he considered throwing a temper tantrum and refusing to let him in, but instead chose to be just slightly more mature by snapping a sturdy "What do you want?" first. Hey, he only went for _slightly _more mature!

"Look, Steve, I eh.. You know what I said.. I mean I'm trying to say that, I.."

Pepper had warned him about this.

"Nope, too much 'I' per sentence. The only thing that I want to hear consists of one 'I'." Steve tried shutting the door and was only mildly surprised when a foot blocked the way. What surprised him more was the pair of big puppy-dog eyes Tony was pulling on him as he tried to desperately keep the door open without getting his foot broken by the serum-filled guy before him.

"I…" Tony gulped, he actually _gulped _before being able to get the sentence out, "I'm sorry." That was all Steve needed to hear and he opened the door, letting the man who looked as broken as Steve himself felt into his room. They needed to sort out whatever it was that made them fight so often.

They needed to talk.

* * *

Half an hour after Tony had left the room to apologize to Steven (after multiple persuasions from both Pepper and the team), Natasha was left wondering what was taking the self-centered genius so long. Curious as she was, she tip-toed her way to Steve's room, her stealthy movements helping her greatly as she made her way there unseen. She laid her hand on the handle of the door to Steve's room and ever so gently moved it downwards. She managed to peer into the room without making a sound, and even kept her surprised gasp too low to hear. She hurriedly walked back to the sitting room where she was greeted by the questioning looks of the other, just as intrigued, Avengers.

"No one is allowed in Cap's room for the next hour." She declared, the image of the two men hugging while sobbing on each other's shoulders still printed clearly in her mind.

**[A/N Eh yes. Hope you liked it!]**


	2. Chapter 2

**[A/N Thankyou for reviewing! I'm glad somebody is reading my story. Good stuff.]**

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Part 2.

Tony walked into the sitting room, a fresh cup of coffee in his hands and he was totally ready for a bit of relaxing in front of the TV. Especially after having opened up to someone else than Pepper… Showing his weak side to Steve had seriously drained him.

He wasn't exactly prepared to get stared at as soon as he walked in. He had made sure all the tear-marks were of his face before facing the rest of the world (because God forbid anyone ever saw Tony crying). He wasn't particularly known for apologizing, but everyone had seen him going to Steve's to say sorry. So what was it that made Thor and Bruce's eyes so glued to him?

"Hey guys, what's up. I know I'm sexy as hell and anyone would enjoy staring at me for days, but I thought you fancied women?" He walked over to them and flopped down on the couch next to Bruce, who immediately leaned back a bit to get a better look at him.

"Dude seriously, what happened in there?" Bruce asked him, waving his hand in the direction of Steve's room. Tony rolled his eyes dramatically.

"We made up, kissed, then had amazing, gay, make-up sex!" Thor's eyes actually widened, and Tony served them with another one of his famous eye-rolls. "Of course we didn't! What do you mean, 'what happened in there'? I apologized. That's it." Seriously, why were they making a big deal out of nothing?

"You were apologizing for _30 minutes, _Tony. 30 minutes! Besides, Natasha said not to bother you two." Tony made a mental note to kill Natasha.

"I don't care if Natasha got the wrong idea. We were just figuring things out."

"About your relationship?" Thor asked bewildered, and Tony legitimately face-palmed.

"Captain America and I are absolutely NOT in a relationship. I would even go as far as to say we absolutely HATE each other. Would you shut up about our non-existent relationship?" He didn't see the one and only Captain just behind him. When he saw Bruce looking at a point just behind him, Tony turned around to look too, to see the captain in question storming off again.

"That doesn't look like nothing to me, brother." Thor commented, chewing on his 12th donut of the day. Tony shook his head to try to organize his thoughts. Why did he always screw up everything… He followed Steve to the balcony he had run off to, leaving Bruce and Thor to figure things out for themselves. (Let them draw the wrong conclusions, he thought bitterly)

"Hey, big boy, you should stop running off like that. Kind of ruins your whole mature persona." He said mainly to Steve's back because the guy was leaning over the balcony railing.

"Why can't we just be friends. After everything you said last night.. the thing with your father.. Was that all made up just to get rid of me or something?" Steve turned around and looked at him. Tony was kind of helpless in this situation. He had close to no experience with emotions, and Steve was a pretty sensitive guy. He tentatively reached out to touch the other man's shoulder, but Steve shook his hand off. "No more hugs until I get an explanation." Steve declared, crossing his arms over his chest. Tony looked at him in disbelieve. After all, not a lot of people were offered a hug from the one and only Tony Stark.

"Steve.. You should just know that.. that I'm not good with all this new.. friendship sort of stuff. Tash is right, I am not a team player. Never have been. I've screwed up every attempt at a relationship, and I have no family to speak of. I've pretty much been alone all my life, and I'm trying not to screw this up. Just.. just give me a chance and don't just believe everything that comes out of my mouth. I say the stupidest things all the time." Tony reached forward again, pulling Steve to him by his shoulder. Steve didn't protest, and allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of the smaller man against his chest. The sound of a loud 'snap' made them both let go and look around them bewildered.

"What was that?" Steve wondered out loud.

"A camera. We're screwed."

* * *

And screwed they were. The next day found them both sitting at a desk in Fury's office, heads down in defeat.

"Would you care to explain this to me?" Fury raged, holding up the newspaper article featuring the two men in a hug with the title 'Iron Man and Captain America: Superhusbands?'.

"It was just a hug!" Tony held up his hands in defense.

"Last time _I _checked, Tony Stark doesn't _just hug_ people. What am I going to do about this? There is no covering up this photo! Now listen here, I have nothing against gay people and you guys being in a relationship is just fine-"

"We are not-"

"But, this will totally ruing your image! Steve is supposed to be the perfect American citizen. Blonde hair, broad shoulders, nice and pretty face. Now he needs a wife, a nice villa and a couple of kids. Not some gay romance in 'Stark Tower'!" Fury had stood up and his palms were flat on his desk, his gaze staring them down. "Now we are going to resolve this." He picked up the news paper and started waving it around a bit for emphasis. "People, they love you two. 'Superhusbands'. I think it's time you two," he gestured to the two males whose mouths turned into a scowl when realization hit them both, "Became a public thing"

"Oh hell.." Tony let his face fall in his hands before looking up at Fury. "I thought you just said that was exactly what was _not _supposed to happen!"

"That was before this photo turned up." Tony let out a deep sigh, and looked Steve, who looked back with equal horror plastered on his face. Yup, great idea, Fury.

Because Tony was just great with love, and he really wanted to come out a non-existent closet for the whole world.

And Steve, who was not used this new era where homosexuality was pretty much normal and who was practically still a virgin, would be totally fine kissing a man in public.

This was just great. _Just _great.

* * *

**[A/N these two parts just served as intro to the story. After this, I will start writing from Tony's or Steve's point of view, so that you actually know how they feel about all this. You might have noticed that 3rd point of view isn't exactly my specialty] **


	3. Chapter 3

**[A/N Hello people. Thankyou for everyone who put the story or me on alert and/or reviewed! I'm really happy with your feedback so far.**

**To Anon 'miss america': Excellent point! Yes, Tony could have held one of his famous conferences. However, the public is skeptical and loves turning against you. And, as Fury was kind enough to point out, said public adores the idea of the two of them together. This is a commercial thing, and Fury thinks them being together is better for their image than them trying to cover up a hug on a balcony. Thankyou for your review!:)**

**Now, on to the story.]**

Part 3

Tony POV

The night Steve and I had the, err, 'enlightening' chat with Fury, seemed like the perfect night to pick up a girl, get her drunk and then slam her into the mattress until she screamed for more. However, this was not possible as the party the Avenger's had been invited to had paparazzi all over the place. So I was stuck at Steve's side, as the giant's arm wrapped around my waist as if I was a God-damned woman. Surely everybody could see that _I _was wearing the pants in our non-existent relationship!

Now Steve was guiding me up the stairs (Stairs with a red carpet draped over them), into the majestic building holding most of the top 100 richest people of the world. A couple of paparazzi were asking our attention, so Steve decided it was OK to use his super-serum-caused-strength to turn me around against my will. Acting as a couple, fine. I had somewhat come to terms with that. But Steve was downright overdoing it.

"What are you doing?" I whispered at him, annoying tone coming through quite well despite my the lowness of the murmur.

"Better get this over with. The quicker the word spreads, the shorter we will have to endure this hellish solution of Fury." He explained to me, still whispering. We both flashed our amazingly fake smiles at the camera, both leaning in slightly more for emphasis, heads pressed together. We were quite good at this. As soon as the camera's were done flashing and we had turned around to walk back up the stairs, we took as big a distance as possible for two guys pretending to be a couple. I could still feel captain's large fingers lightly grazing my lower back, and it wasn't unpleasant. Of course, I would never admit to this out loud. Natasha was downright _smirking _at me when we greeted her and the rest of the team inside. And as we all know Natasha is always serious business so this meant she was pretty damned amused about the whole situation.

"So 'nothing happened', huh?" Bruce, Barton and Thor were all snickering because of Natasha's comment (God knows how she even knew of that conversation between Bruce, Thor and me).

"You know with all my money, power and fame I could easily have you all sued for one thing or another, right?" I smirked back at them. This friendly bickering continued throughout the party, and we mostly stayed together. I'm pretty sure I saw Natasha and Clint dancing together, so that's something I've got to remember for if they ever dare tease me with this Steve-business again. Especially since they looked like a combination of Bambi on ice and a fish on dry land. Steve's hand was glued to my back the whole time, and I was steered in all directions by him and forced to give my statement on gay marriage (Because that's what they put your through when you are a famous and rich man coming out of the closet).

"I think we," It was still weird to refer to homosexuals with 'we', "should have exactly the same rights as everyone else because we are human beings." I repeated for the 100th time that night.

"So you are now completely done with women?" The reporter, with whom I'd slept a year or so ago asked almost hopefully, as if she still had a chance to get laid again.

"I don't see why my relationship with Steve should influence my taste in women." I replied, but then added as an extra incentive "Altought he _is _mouthwateringly gorgeous, of course." I was having fun with watching Steve's face flush a dark crimson every time I said something related to the (sadly still non-existent) physical aspects of our relationship. I didn't get to dwell on that thought for too long, though, because I was, again, being steered away.

"Steve will you stop doing that?" I shout-whispered to him, trying to wiggle out of his iron grip. Iron, ha-ha. Although the irony wasn't entirely adequate, because my suit isn't made of iron. Haaaaa irony! OK, enough of this bullshit. I had to remember that I was still angry with Steve.

"Doing what?" He answered with an innocent smile.

"You," I pointed my finger into his way too broad chest, "steering me," I pointed to myself "like I'm some sort of good-for-nothing woman that can't stand up for herself because her husband is way too strong for her!"

"Well, I AM way too strong for you!" Steve was having way too much fun with this. OK, maybe I had it coming.

"You don't just… Take charge of Tony Stark! People don't do that! There isn't a single mane, Tony Stark can't tame." I said proudly, tilting my chin up.

"That's exactly the difference in being with me, Tony." Steve was on the border of doubling up and laughing at me.

"Except we aren't together, so you might as well, you know take some distance." I hissed through gritted teeth, trying once again to push myself out of his grip. He only tightened his arm and.. no. Did he just add another one? Was he actually _encircling _my waist?

"Well, while Fury is making us do this, might as well have fun with it." Steve grinned when I pulled a helpless expression on him. When suddenly, my genius brain came up with a great idea.

"Yes, yes we might." I could tell that I probably had 'that look' in my eyes, because Steve was getting kind of concerned. "What do you say, do we ruin his party or what?" I asked, cocking my head in the direction of Fury, who was chatting with some of his equally terrifying friends. "Because he, you know, ruined both our love lives for the next 5 years?"

"Yeah… I think he kind of deserves that.." Steve grinned and grabbed my hand (I temporarily ignored the nice feeling of his soft, slightly bigger hand enclosing mine, and chose to review on that later) and we started planning.

Fury was not getting out of this without any trouble for himself..

**[A/N Thankyou to the reviewers and everyone who put this on alert! Thaaaaaanks.]**


	4. Chapter 4

**[A/N I know I keep saying this, but thanks for the feedback. I love seeing that people actually read enjoy this!]**

Part 4.

"You do know he is going to be pretty pissed, right?" Steve asked me. We were crouched behind the food table. The food table which actually had a bowl holding punch, because that's how cliche this whole party was.

"Yes, that was the point of this. And since when did you start using words like 'pissed'?" I grinned and Steve's cheeks flushed, it was adorable.

"I've been working on upgrading my vocabulary." He mumbled.

"Steve, you know you shouldn't be learning your vocabulary from me of all people, right. I tend to get a little.. dirty-mouthed." I cocked my head to the side. "Now that I think about it, even JARVIS seems to have taken over some sarcasm of me." Steve raised an eyebrow.

"You talk about JARVIS like he's your friend or something. Have I met him?" He asked. I shrugged.

"What can I say? He's basically all I've got." My smile probably wasn't very convincing anymore. Steve looked at me as if he was trying to figure me out, but didn't answer.

Our plan was simple. Fury had made us some superhusbands couple, rendering me unavailable to ladies for the next decade or so because they'd all think I was gay. Which sucked, because everybody should know that ladies are really the better choice for me. Women are good, women are... easy. Women are familiar, _safe. _

Anyhow, we decided revenge was only fair. The best way to ruin one of Fury's party's (one of those he only organizes so people can gawk at us, and he receives a shitload of money), is to make his party-go'ers unhappy. If they are, they will not want to spend money on shares of the S.H.I.E.L.D company. Maybe it wasn't the smartest plan, because S.H.I.E.L.D. was our employer, but it would be fun.

"OK, So here's the plan." I pulled Steve close by his collar so he could hear me at whisper volume. "You see that screen over there?" I pointed in the direction of a big screen. I had already previously noticed that it was of bullshit quality and probably made for PowerPoint presentations for kids on a high school. The front of the screen was surrounded by a little stage of some sorts, and sooner or later people would start to gather around it so see some sort of tribute to the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. "That's where they are going to show the tribute that Jane insisted on making."

"Jane?" Steve gave me a sheepish look. From right about here (approximately 10cm away), I could see the little dent between his eyebrows when he furrowed them. To state that in a less poetic way: We were extremely close.

"Thor's woman. Not important right now." I waved back to the screen. "I had JARVIS hack into Fury's system, and let me tell you. What is going to play on that screen is definitely not some sappy shit about us saving the world for the 100th time. Oh no, this is way better." I groped around in the pocket of my overly expensive suit to find my mobile phone. "Here." I showed him a video Natasha (that sneaky girl) had once made when she had first left her past as Black Widow behind her. I clicked the play button, and watched Steve closely. Any moment now, he will lose it. No one can keep a straight face looking at this video.

"My God, what's he even doing?" Steve was smirking at the screen and looking up at me now and then. I found myself not listening to his words but staring at his face like the creepy stalker I am. What can I say, he has the best dentist in all of America because, damn! Those are some straight-ass teeth. Steve handed me back my phone. "Well… that should work. That should definitely work."

"That's what I thought." We were smirking at each other, and for just a moment, all the history and problems between the two of us dissolved.

It was almost like having a friend.

* * *

We were back with the others before anyone had noticed anything, because everyone is unobservant like that. Some super heroes we are!

"So, how has your night with mr Rogers been so far, mr Stark?" Bruce asked, a petite smile grazing his lips. "Trying to get him drunk, are you?" He eyed the two glasses Martini I was carrying.

"I can't get drunk." Steve said, suddenly standing behind me. How can a 6ft guy even be sneaky? I yelped when two arms circled my waist, and turned around in a mingle of horror and shock.

"What the hell, man? Don't sneak up on me. Not. Permitted." I poked his chest for emphasis. Emphasis is good. When I got too distracted by the texture of his muscled chest, I decided it was time to turn my attention on something else before this got out of hand. I mean, I always get things out of hand. "So anyhooooow," I dragged out the word while turning around, "This was for you, Bruce. You are about to witness something amazing, you can use some alcohol."

I was grinning at him while I handed over the glass (there goes my baby..) and I'm sure I saw Steve pull a little smile as well. I hooked my arm through his, refusing to be steered around again (although this might have been a little bit uncomfortable because Steve is just so tall, and I'm just.. not). Bruce just watched with a raised eyebrow, and followed us to the stage where people were already assembling.

"Hey cap, stark!" Hawk was gesturing us over, "Bruce! Over here, guys. If you stand too close to that stage the only thing you'll be seeing is Fury's underwear when he introduces the tribute thing."

"Yes, the tribute thing. That's totally what we're going to be looking at, isn't it cap'n?" I nudged Steve in his side with our linked arms.

"Yes, totally." We were both grinning like Loki, and Natasha, Bruce, Thor and Clint were pulling some weird faces while trying to figure things out.

"Am I not enlightened about something?" Thor asked, giant arms wide open to enrich his presentation of the one single question. Because Thor always speaks like he's on stage, reading out Shakespeare. That's just how he is. It dawned on me that everyone was probably drawing the wrong conclusions here, but I, frankly, didn't care. Steve was too caught up in the wonders of the amazingly bad powerpoint screen to notice the raised eyebrows of our team-members. 80-year-olds and technology…

"Nah, you'll see." Just as I said it, Fury hopped onto the stage (Thank you Clint for making us stand further away), and the crowd clapped. We didn't.

"Ladies and Gentlemen." He was pulling some kind of illusion on the crowd, because he usually wasn't that cheerful, trust me, "We are all gathered here because our loyal Avengers," did he just make us sounds like his pet dogs? "have yet again managed to save the planet from forces outside of our reach!" clap clap clap clap, "And now, a tribute to our great team of superheroes!" He gestured to the screen and walked off the stage. I wiggled my eyebrows at everyone of the team, and they all looked at me as if I were crazy. They would understand soon enough…

On the screen appeared an island, the same island Fury sent me to when I had to create a new element that wouldn't kill me, remember? We saw Fury sitting on a beach chair, parrot on his shoulder and all. The waiter came around, gave him his glass and left. Fury looked around to check if he was alone, and when he was convinced he was (he wasn't, because Natasha was kind enough to film this hilarious event), he stood, ripped his long dark cloak off his body to reveal a pair of glittery shorts. Golden glittery shorts. He got his phone out of his discarded clothes and turned on High School Musical's title song, and started honest-to-god dancing. Like, really putting his soul into it dancing. You could hear Natasha's snickers both on the video and in the audience.

"Oh.. God." Clint groaned, turning his head away from the screen. "Don't make me look at it any longer." The rest of the audience was pretty much just gaping and just as we got at the best part (the part where Fury started wiggling his ass like crazy), Fury jumped on stage, shutting off the video on his way to it.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON HERE?" he bellowed, before his eyes landed on me. I couldn't control my laughter any longer and clutched my stomach, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder to stop myself from falling. "Tony fucking Stark… you are a dead man."

**[A/N you might have noticed that the chapters are always about 1k words long, and that I upload every day, sometimes twice.. That's because this is actually a writing exercise. In order to become a writer, you have to write at least 1000 words a day even if you don't have inspiration. At least, that's what my 'how to' book says xD Also, apologies for mistakes, I'm still looking for a beta.] **


	5. Chapter 5

**[A/N Oh God, I was starting to feel all tingly inside because you are all so extremely helpful and nice to meeeee. *cries* All the feeeels.]**

Part 5.

We were once again seated in Fury's office, the Cap'n and me. Cozily in that warm office of Fury, because the man is all mellow himself. You know how he is! Insert a dose of Stark sarcasm there. Fury was looking at us, and I looked him right in the eye. Eyepatch. Eye? I settled on the Eyepatch, because it was less intimidating and personal/ Getting personal with Fury isn't nice.

"You, Stark. I expected this kind of rubbish from you. You are _just _the man for the job. Arrogant, smart, a real technologist and oh so clever with your little machines. Rogers, on the other hand," he turned his eyepatched gaze to Steve, "I'd expected better from you!" Steve visibly cringed under the disappointed look of his superior. This kind of made me angry, presumably because I cared or something irrelevant and stupid like that but the feeling was so, so annoying.

"_Steve_, had nothing to do with this, _sir._" Steve straightened in his seat and looked at me with a curious look. Fury looked from Steve to me and back a couple of times. "It was all on me. Do you really think a man born 70 to 80 years ago could actually have helped me hack your system? It even took JARVIS 20 minutes. Steve wouldn't succeed in a century! No offense, pal." I slapped Steve on his upper-leg and he shrugged. "Let me tell you Fury. Punish me all you want, kick me out of the team. _Whatever._ I mean, trust me, I really don't need that monthly paycheck from S.H.I.E.L.D. to be able to sustain any kind of livelihood. I have Thor's weight in millions on my bank account." I Looked back at Steve, who had fallen remarkably quiet, before continuing, "But don't punish this guy. He doesn't deserve your anger, or your rants or punishments. Look at him! Does he look like the kind of guy who'd hack into your system and ruin your party?" Fury considered this for a moment.

"Alright, Stark. I get it, I get it. I'll find some way to get you back, Stark, you can count on that. You are dismissed," I jumped out of my seat and pulled Steve with me in a quick motion, doing a little happy dance, but Fury settled his eye on my again. "For now." Because Fury had to make everything scary and dramatic and that's why you just don't want to be around him. And his secrets have secrets, which is like secret-ception and extremely creepy and you do not want to read into that too much.

"Yes, right. Come on, superhubby!" I started pushing Steve's back with my fists, putting all my weight into it, but not really succeeding anyway.

"Good bye, Mr Rogers." Steve replied with a curt nod and turned around, grabbing my arms.

"No, Tony, no pushing me around. Bad girl." He patted my head and grinned down at me, making me feel even smaller and weaker.

"Wait until I get my suit on." I smirked back, all worries about Fury gone. But when I turned around to give one last wave to my weirdly scary employer, I'm sure I saw the tiniest smile on his lips. Why was everyone smiling behind my back all the time?

* * *

"Hey Steve is my hair a funny color or something?" Steve had my wrist in enclosed in his hand, and was dragging me towards my work shop.

"What?" He asked absent-mindedly, letting go of my wrist to search around my workshop for something.

"Everybody has been hiding smiles from us. I'm trying to find out what's so funny."

"Hmm, no idea." He replied, going about opening cupboards and drawers. I stood with my hands on my hips, foot tapping the ground impatiently.

"What are you looking for?" I finally asked when one of my favorite 'stark' coffee mugs fell to the ground and broke. I winced when a few sketches landed in the spilled left-over coffee.

"It has to be somewhere here." Steve mumbled. Before he could do any more damage to my workshop, I grabbed his arm.

"Steve!" He turned around to face me and he was suddenly very, _very _close. I could actually smell his breath when he mumbled 'yes?'. "Take a chill pill. Relax. Tell me what it is you're looking for."

"Right. Okay. " He sat down on the chair I shoved towards him and I sat on the desk in front of him. "So I was in your work-shop, like, yesterday." I raised an eye-brow, which meant: 'what kind of business could you of all people have in my workshop?', but he held his hand up. "I will get to that later. So, I was in your work-shop, when I hear a voice, right?" I nod, afraid of the direction in which this conversation in headed, "But I don't see a person. You can imagine how creepy that was right? So I go searching, like, where is this coming from, man? So walk in the direction of the voice, when suddenly I hear it right behind me!" My eyebrows have positively reached my hair-line now. "So I figured, it must be something moving. Or like, a walky-talky! We had those in the war, you know. So where are you hiding them?" Steve asked, eyes shining and mouth in a big smiled like he had just made a brilliant deduction. I hopped off my desk, when to sit in front of him and clasped my hands on his shoulders.

"Steve, Steve, Steve.." I shook my head and could barely contain my laughter. "I think, you just met JARVIS." I bark out a laugh and my head falls into his lap. "You- you thought JARVIS, my AI, was a walky-talky? Oh Jesus God I wish I had a facebook. I should make a facebook ant put it on there. I really should." Steve was apparently still not up to date.

"Wait, JARVIS isn't your friend, then?"

"Oh, yes he is. I created him, he's a robot. He does everything for me, and a lot for the team too. He tells everyone the weather and the time when they get up and he is able to do all kinds of cool things."

"Thank you, sir." JARVIS' voice echoed through the workshop and Steve jumped.

"I didn't have him installed in your room, because I thought it might scare you. Old man." I slapped his knee and stood up. Offering my hand to him. He took it with one of those amazingly grateful smiles on his face even if he didn't need my hand to get up. He's just sweet like that. He started laughing softly to himself.

"I guess that was pretty stupid, right?"

"No, it was rather adorable." I grinned, sitting down at my desk to start with the new Iron Man mask that had been ruined during the last mission.

"Hey Tony?"

"Hmhm?"

"Thanks for what you did, back there. In Fury's office. I mean, anger is bad, I don't like it when people are angry at me. But this was way worse, because he was disappointed. Thank you." I stood again, unable to sit still for too long, and made my way to the Captain.

"My pleasure, superhubby." And I leaned into him for a super comfortable huh that only he seemed to be able to give me.

**[A/N aah dad is shutting off the internetz in 3 minutes, so I hope this is alright can't read it aaah *spaces out*]**


	6. Chapter 6

**[A/N Uh. Nothing to say. Just go on and read it, nobody cares about author notes anyway :P]**

Part 6.

It was only 6 days later (4 of which contained a hug of Steve, I was keeping count) when Fury insisted on my presence in his atrocious excuse of an office again. Really, the man is all about safety , yet his security systems are so bad even that fucker of Hammer technology could have hacked his way through it. Now that, _that _means it's really bad. So I was sitting, looking at the eyepatch as usual. Thank God for the eyepatch. Imagine him staring at you with _two _eyes. On the other hand, don't imagine that, that's too creepy. I heavily resisted the urge to ask 'What now?', but my clever brain advised me not to, just to get rid of him quicker. Thank you, whatever scraps are left of my consciousness.

"So here we are, Tony. Our Iron Man."

"Sorry, but.." I cocked my head side-ways and stroked my beard, "last time I checked, I'm _nobody's something._" I narrowed my eyes at him. "If I remember correctly, in fact, wasn't it me who prevented your superior's nuke from blowing us all up? Oh, I think it was. How funny of you to thank me by making me openly gay!" Fury chose to ignore that, because if something stands in Fury's way he runs right over it without looking back to see what it is.

"I was thinking a sort of punishment, to ensure such shenanigans will not occur again. Are we clear?" I didn't react, but Fury took my silence as an agreement. "Good. I was thinking cleaning duty. For the next two Avengers missions, you will do all the cleaning _on your own. _That means no robots, no slaves hired from _somewhere_," he was referring to that one time I hired a bunch of Asgardians to do my job and in return they could have Thor back for a couple of weeks. "and the other team-members can just enjoy not having to do the useless stuff."

"Fury, you can't be serious." I rubbed my hands over my head. "Can I at least use my suit?" my hands were still covering my face, but I still opened a gap between two fingers to look at him hopefully.

"Fine." He said, crossing his arms like the boss he was. This pissed me off, because be honest! Could the Avengers do without Tony Stark? I don't fucking think so.

"Look the only reason I'm not saying 'fuck all of this rubbish, I'm gone.' Is because Steve has this incredulous idea that he needs you for some reason. Don't think I'm doing this because I depend on you, Fury."

"Steve, eh?" Fury granted me with one of his interested looks. He hardly gives people this look, because the things he's seen are so crazy there aren't many things that could keep him interested. So why is he looking at m- "Alright, I'm done here. Don't forget your cleaning duty!" I let out a soft groan when I felt my head drop on the table, all thoughts about Fury's look forgotten as I was reminded of the hell I'd have to go through.

* * *

"Cleaning!" I barked loudly. Tonight, everyone was having a night in and we would all be enjoying Thor and Jane's cooking (Jane had been invited over, so the whole house had been swept by my cleaning robots so that it appeared we were all extremely civilized). Dinner at a table, an actually _table. _The six of us plus Jane. Around a table, with dinner, together. Something was bound to go wrong. "He wants me to _clean _god damn it." I started walking around, moving my arms animatedly. "Oh, Fury hires the most genius man in the world, who created the best weapon ever made. And no, why use him to fend the Earth from creatures of outer space, when you can have him _cleaning._ Because _cleaning _requires so many brain cells!"

"Well actually, a decent amount of brain cells would quicken up the process of cleaning remarkably if a good plan was formed using those brain cells." Thor commented while steering whatever he was brewing in my expensive sets of pans.

"If anyone says the word cleaning again, I might actually kick them in the nuts." Natasha said from her appointed chair at the table (Thor had given everyone their own chair around the table, 'Tony, you must sit next to your lover! ' he'd boomed, sitting me down next to Steve). It was quite effective, because nobody is stupid enough to not take her serious.

"I'll take your word for it." I mumbled, stopping my pacing and sitting down next to Steve, quite embarrassed that I was actually following _rules _just to sit next to Steve.

"Oh, you better! I've felt one of those kicks and damn, those kicks should have a name for themselves that's how menacing they are." Clint said, appearing with some plates to lay on the table. Jane quickly handed him another set of plates for him to lay.

"Nut-crusher." Bruce said.

"Nah, I think nut-cracker might be more appropriate." Clint mused.

"Ball-breaker!" Jane joined in.

"How about I'll seriously crack them if you don't shut up now?" Natasha said.

As Thor finished his cooking, Jane was finished handing everyone stuff to arrange on the table properly and everyone was _finally _sitting on the right chairs, things began to become relaxed and friendlier and everyone seemed to be enjoying the foods served by Thor.

"OK, so let me get this straight." Clint said, holding his chicken leg and pointing it in the direction of Thor. He might have been slightly on the drunk side from the strong booze I had laying around in my kitchen. "You, you are a God from Asgard. And you can cook this shit better than Tony, who has lived on Earth all his life. I mean.." He squinted his eyes, a frown forming on his face. "I don't even get, like, how is that possible?" I took this as the cue to direct Clint to his bedroom.

"Alright, mate, I think it's time for you to sleep."

"Sleep? _Sleep?_ You want me to sleep peacefully after having watched Natasha in that skirt all day? I'm surprised all us men are not walking around with boners all over the place!" He laughed, and fell from his chair. Thor was laughing at Clint, but was not overly sober himself as he tried crouching down next to him but instead fell backwards and landed on his back right next to him.

"Oops!" He boomed a laugh, filling the whole house with the sound.

"Is your stomach as strong as it looks?" Natasha giggled, putting her 20th drink of the night on the table to test the theory out for herself by sitting down on Thor's stomach. This got a not-at-all-sober-anymore Jane a bit jealous and she pushed Natasha off, onto the ground, to reclaim her rightful territory on Thor's lap.

Bruce had by now started snoring with his head on the table, drool pooling right under his mouth.

Steve and I exchanged a glance. OK, so maybe my super-hero friends weren't as alcohol resistant as I'd hoped them to be, but why was Steve still standing upright? Oh yes, serum. And that's that awkward moment when I realized Steve and I were the only people still awake and sober in the house. I glanced back at the heap of drunken friends who by now had all passed out one way or another (Natasha's head might have just been bashed in by Thor and Jane's combined forces).

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets, hopping from his toes onto his heels and back a couple of times. "Soooo we.."

"yes, we are the only ones still awake and sober in the house and it's only….JARVIS what's the time?"

"1:23, sir." JARVIS replied.

"Guess that stuff of you is pretty powerful, eh?" I shrugged.

"To them, yes. Me, as a professional drinker, doesn't really feel the effects quite as much." He was just standing there, looking anywhere but my face and I couldn't help but wonder when things had gotten so awkward between us. And maybe it was the way Steve was standing there, all insecure and awkward and shuffling his feet. Maybe I was more affected by the alcohol than I actually had wanted to admit, but frankly I didn't care what was fueling my sudden desire to step forwards and kiss him. All I know was that as soon as I reacted on the impulse, I was regretting it.

[**A/N weeh. Sorry this was a tad late!]**


	7. Chapter 7

**[A/N Ah, listening to AC/DC while writing. Hearing the clanks of Tony fighting some drones through the song.. Can it get any better? Nu-uh, don't think so]**

Part 7.

This certainly did not resolve any of the previous awkwardness. You see, there were a couple of possible outcomes to this, but I had narrowed them down to the two most likely ones. One, the outcome I preferred in which Steve and I realized our mutual love and started making out like crazy, possibly ending up in the bedroom. Or the second option, which it unfortunately came down to, where Steve was not blinded by his passion for me and where he abruptly pushed me away.

"What the hell, man?" He whisper-shouted.

"I don't know." I rubbed my hand over my face, taking a deep sigh. Why do I have such bad repulse control. Why did I do that? For all I knew I just stole this man's first kiss. That thought actually made me kind of happy, but I didn't think it was true. The easiest thing to do right now would be just taking off with one of my overly expensive cars and return 5 days later when everyone had forgotten about it. Normally, I'd do such a thing. But this was Steve, and after all the time Steve managed to spend not running away from me, he deserves a bit of an explanation. Even if I didn't have said explanation myself, yet.

"Tony, you can't just…do that!"

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Well, be sure it doesn't happen again, because next time a man kisses me, I won't take it kindly." Steve sneered. His words cut me like a razor blade. Sharp, painful and the wounds would take long to heal. To make sure the wound won't get infected though, alcohol is needed. Turning a metaphor into an excuse to drink was a new low, but I could really use some now just to forget all of this and be as OK as I can be the next morning. Steve took off like that, and I could tell by the way he hung his head that he already regretted what he'd said. But he didn't turn back to see if I was OK, so I walked to the kitchen to get myself something strong enough to erase all the bad memories.

* * *

I woke up knowing something was wrong, but my brain couldn't quite wrap around it yet. I was probably shit-faced yesterday and said or did something stupid. I rolled out of bed, got told by my loyal AI that it was way too hot for this time of year due to global warming, shoved my legs into jogging pants and grabbed a random tank top from the floor.

I stumbled into the kitchen/dining area where people were already seated around the table. Heads seemed to be almost rolling off and eyeballs were directed at either the floor or unfinished meals. Thor seemed quite cheerful, the rest was just sort of sitting there like a bunch of zombies. Steve was missing.

"OK, I did something stupid last night. What did I do." I said as a way to declare I was in the room. On my way to the coffee machine I pulled my tank top on, trying to get my arc reactor in place through the hole in the t-shirt. To my horror, everyone was sitting on their appointed chairs. I made a point of sitting in Steve's chair instead of my 'own' (which was ridiculous because the house was mine, and _everywhere _was my rightful place).

"I know one stupid thing you did, and that was allowing us to touch your alcohol stock." Clint murmured.

"What can I say, I was pretty wasted myself, turns out."

"No, I'm quite certain you weren't, metal man." Thor said, munching on a spoonful of cereal. I thought we were past the 'metal man' greetings, but whatever. "I might have fallen asleep, but I can quite clearly remember you being pretty much sober. I cannot imagine you drinking while all of your friends were passed out in your kitchen."

"I think you're giving me way too much credit there, Thor. I don't remember anything."

"Then how do you even know you did something stupid?" Natasha asked, raising her head from where it was laying on her arms.

"Had a feeling." I shrugged, stealing something to eat from Thor's plate. "Oh, and the face Rogers is giving me right now." I said as Steve walked in, looking quite hostile. I held up my hands. "OK, man whatever I did yesterday I apologize profusely and blame it all on the alcohol." I said quickly, backing away as he strode towards me, but it turned out he was only walking towards me to down next to me. I breathed out a puff of air in relieve, and slapped him on the shoulder. "Good, I'm glad we sorted that out."

"We didn't." He muttered, "We need to talk."

"Well, what's there to talk about?" I asked, and noticed everyone's curious, still sleepy but clearly intrigued eyes were on us.

"I don't think you want them to know." He answered, gesturing to the rest of our friends with his piece of toast.

"I really don't think I will mind if they hear." I said confidently.

"I really think you will."

"Certainly won't." I smirked at him and Steve sighed, massaging his face with his unoccupied hand. Since when had Steve stopped with playful bickering?

"Alright. Fine. Whatever. Yesterday, everybody was passed out on the floor, you and I were the only ones still able to stand on our own feet. You saw this as the opportunity to rape my mouth." No. Natasha's head flew up from her arms again and Bruce's eyes opened. Thor seemed amused for some reason, and Clint thought it was the appropriate time for a whistle.

"Is this some kind of joke?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"If only it were." Steve mumbled, head red as a beet. This couldn't be possibly true. It was bad enough that I'd kissed this man whom I was desperately trying to befriend against his will. But the one thought that kept me busy was that our first kiss had been while I was drunk, and that I remembered nothing from it. Not even the texture of his lips, or the way he tasted, or if he was any good at it. I groaned.

"I'm sorry, it must have been the alcohol."

"Will you stop blaming everything you do on something you do to yourself? god damned it." Steve slammed his fist on the table and stood up. "It's exactly as Thor says, Tony. You weren't drunk. I don't know if you thought it'd be funny, or if you wanted to prove a point or what. But it was distasteful, and if you ever touch me again I'd rather go back to the prison cell Fury has ready for me, than stay here and risk being raped by a guy." He said angrily. I held my hands up again in surrender.

"OK, man, fine. Have it your own homophobic way. I don't remember anything from last night, and I doubt they do." I gestured with my raised hands to the rest, who were all politely having a different conversation and who were trying their best to not look at us. "So for all I know you are making it all up." I shrugged my shoulders. "Whatever, seriously." I walked back and sat with the rest of the team, who stopped their conversation immediately and looked up at me. "Who feels like taking a ride to New York in a Stark jet, some shopping, watching a movie and going out and flying back before midnight? All on me!" I shouted, grinning at them. They all dropped the subject and agreed cheerfully, ready for some fresh air to hit their lungs while dealing with their horrendous hangover.

**[A/N hope you likey.]**


	8. Chapter 8

**[A/N it's 4:00, and I couldn't sleep. So I used my sneaky techniques (learned those from Black Widow while watching the Avengers) to get to my computer. Oh, by the way, I have a link where you can watch the Avengers. It's not brilliant quality, but well, the DVD isn't even out yet. So if you wanted to see it again, just send me a message and I'll get you the link. (if it still works xD)]**

Part 8.

"All right, people. Welcome to my humble private jet." I said, smiling broadly while contradicting myself.

"It's more luxurious than my old apartment." Clint breathed, eyes roaming around the open and spacious interior of the Stark jet.

"Have a seat, my friends." I said, gesturing to the comfortable couch in the back. "I assume drinks are out of the question?" I grinned at them. Everyone (except Steve, who I had chosen to ignore in revenge) was actually smiling, which was an achievement. Even Bruce cracked a not-too-awkward smile. "Alright. Let's see.." I set down besides the rest of the team, as far away as possible from Steve, and got a piece of paper and a pen.

"What are you up to?" Bruce asked, eyeing the items in my hand.

"Well, contrary to popular believe, I don't just think about myself all the time." I said, glaring at Steve, who I could just see in the corner of my eye. "If we are going to spend a whole day in NYC with 6 completely different people, everyone should get to choose something they like. As in, activities."

"That is very thoughtful of you, brother." Thor smiled at me, clapping my back hard enough for me to almost choke on my own spit.

"Right, Bruce. What do you want to do today? Remember, all on me."

* * *

Creating the list was easier than it should have been, considering our differences. Natasha had insisted on going to the cinema to watch 'men in black', not to enjoy the movie but to criticize the fighting techniques of everyone. This had gone fairly well and we had all enjoyed looking at the weird karate rip-off moves they were making.

Bruce thought it was a nice idea to go to the 'New York Hall of Science', a museum about science which was the most fun for him and for me. I'd hoped it would suck for Steve, but he actually learned something, which he enjoyed, and that sucked.

I, myself, had dragged everyone into a shopping centre because their closets could really use an upgrade or two. Or three. It turned out to be pretty hilarious. Watching Thor persuade Clint into trying on a dress, watching Natasha fume about the bad quality of the material.

"This could easily be ripped by a knife." She had said. Then Steve tried on a pair of pants, which he ended up buying with my credit card, which hugged his ass way too good. Even though I was reminding myself to keep ignoring him, watching him in this pants possibly multiple times a week was definitely worth my money. I also bought us all matching I heart NY sweaters, to each his own color. Bruce a green one, blue for don't-call-him-Steven-he-is-Rogers-now. Natasha and Clint got matching black ones, and Thor got a red one which left yellow for me. We all looked like a bunch of weirdoes, but it was fun nonetheless.

"Yellow really doesn't suit you, Tony." Clint mused, looking me up and down.

"I know," I pouted, "But Thor got a red one already."

After our shopping trip, it was Clint's turn who immediately went for the 'Long Island Shooting Center'. Also fun, because we all got to shoot the crap out of both moving and still targets. Of course, Clint and Natasha were both acing everything, Steve wasn't half bad because of his practice in the army, and I was used to Iron Man so this wasn't particularly hard. Bruce and Thor both had way too large hands for the guns, had no experience at all and got frustrated with the machines, but it was still fun.

Steve had chosen to put us all through mountain-biking, the mountain-biking in itself was fun, but competing against Steve and his stamina wasn't. Besides, I could think of a few things I'd rather have him use the stamina on. Anyhow, Steve won, Natasha was second, Thor's bike had been crushed under his weight, Bruce and Clint followed closely after Natasha and I came peddling around last. Fuck you, Steve, you did this on purpose didn't you. My thought was confirmed when I saw Steve giving me a sneaky smirk. Bastard. Everyone was pretty much drained after all the activities, so we went to a shawarma joint to re-fuel and relax before starting with Thor's chosen activity. Everyone was actually a bit scared about his chosen activity.

"So." I said, munching on my food, "how has the day been so far, guys?"

"Excellent!" Thor boomed, still full of energy.

"Good." Steve mumbled, probably too ashamed to admit it. Natasha and Clint agreed, nodding wildly.

"So, guys. We have one last person to choose an activity. What will it be, Thor?" I asked.

"I want to do that activity, where humans go to a place where they dance together, and drink beer." Thor said, proud that he actually came up with something that normal people do on a daily basis.

"You want us to go clubbing? The Avengers, clubbing, together?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Exactly!" Did his smile just grow even wider?

So we all agreed on going clubbing, and were now seated around the bar of club 'Le Bar Bat', which Thor had chosen simply because he liked the name.

"Alright. I know this was meant to be a hangover recovery trip, but what do you think? Shall we get shit-faced or what?" I asked, and they seemed to agree happily. "Mister!" I called to the barman, "Serve my friends the best and most expensive you've got, will you?" I slipped him a couple of bills without looking, "Keep the change." And he went to work on mixing our drinks.

The night was going quite well. Natasha had agreed, and I'm sure I saw her blushing, to dance with Clint. God those two need to open their eyes and get together already. Bruce had actually allowed himself a dance which a pretty lady had offered him. Turned out she knew who he was, and she was a great fan of 'the other guy'. Thor was in a drinking contest with a bunch of other guys, and was doing well, or so it seemed. Which once again, left Steve and me. He shuffled closer to me, looking at the ground with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Yes, Steve?" I replied, trying to make eye contact with his beautiful blue eyes, but he insisted on giving the floor all his attention.

"I'm sorry for the things I said. It was uncalled for. I was just… confused." He said, and to my surprise, offered his hand. "Want to dance?" He smiled slightly and uncertainly when I just gaped at him, slowly standing from my chair to accept his offered hand.

"Yes." I mumbled, "Yes of course."

"We are still superhubbies, yes?" He asked, still shy.

"Look, Steve, I don't know what fuelled your need to say what you did, but as long as you say you didn't mean it.. who am I to tell you otherwise? Like I said, I say the dumbest shit all the time, without actually meaning it. It's OK." I said. We had arrived at the dance floor, and Steve awkwardly moved his hands to my waist. "Uh Steve."

"Hmm?"

"I don't actually know how to dance with a dude." He laughed, and that's when everything fell into place because I'd made Steve laugh, and that was how it was supposed to happen. This was supposed to be the rest of my life, me making Steve happy. Forever. Of course, they chose _that _moment to start a slow song, because everything in my life seemed to be one huge cliché. It did give me an excuse to wrap my hands around Steve's neck, to lean into his chest as he pulled my closer.

"Do it again." Steve suddenly said, breaking my peaceful trance-like state.

"Do what?"

"I want to try it. I think I'm ready." That made me extremely confused, because he sounded like a girl ready to lose her virginity.

"Steve?"

"Kiss me." He said, and my heart literally skipped a beat.

**[A/N Because I'm tired now and finally ready to go to sleep, it ends here. Sowwie! Also, note how Tony keeps saying how he is ignoring Steve, but is actually paying more attention to him than all the others :) And I'm asking my sister to draw some fanart of them in the sweaters! :D yay. See ya later, faithful readers.]**


	9. Chapter 9

**[A/N **

**To anon 'reader' : I'm glad you're enjoying this story, and I do try to update frequently, yes :)**

**I should tell y'all, I suck at kissing scenes. Consider yourself warned.]**

Part 9.

"Kiss me." He said, and my heart literally skipped a beat. I didn't know what had changed his mind, or how he could go from being totally disgusted by me to actually wanting to kiss me. But hey, who was I to deny him?

"Alright, I can do that." I smirked, leaning up to lightly touch my lips to his. Oh, they were soft. Soft, and smooth and perfect and he tasted so good. He was awkward and inexperienced but that was OK, because he was kissing me, voluntarily, and he had shoved my shirt up a bit, fingers lightly caressing my lower back. I brought my hands up to tug at his hair, and he allowed me to deepen our kiss. His hands almost wandered lower, but when he caught himself he quickly took a step back. "Hey, man," I said, drawing him closer again by his hands and putting them back in place. "It's fine." He smiled slightly and shyly before lowering his head to resume our kissing. I had just began roaming my hands over his broad chest when I heard a displeased grunt behind me. I turned around and got into my 'bitch, please' stance. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked.

"Tony, let him go. Time to stop molesting pretty guys and go home." Clint said.

"It was definitely not molesting." I said, following Clint and pulling Steve with me by his hand. We eventually managed to assemble every Avenger (even Thor, who was going on and on about his victory in the drinking contest), and got our way back to the Stark jet with Thor heavily leaning on Steve. We all collapsed on my couch and were handed cold water by the stewardess I would have considered attractive had I not just made out with Steve Rogers. Natasha only needed to take one look at our disheveled state to know what had happened, and she smirked.

"I thought you two were fighting?" Bruce asked, taking a good, big gulp from his water.

"So did I." I nudged Steve, "What changed your mind? God, I certainly hope you won't change it again." I said, smiling playfully at him. Steve groaned.

"I really don't want to talk about this now.." He mumbled, and we all took mercy on him. I did make him promise to tell me everything that went on in that pretty blonde head as soon as we were alone.

* * *

"I don't even want to know why you want him in your bedroom." Clint said as I was ushering Steve of to my room. He pulled a face, probably disgusted with himself for even allowing that thought to appear in his mind. I wiggled my eyebrows at him before disappearing around the corner.

"You are free to join, if you want?" I called before shutting the door to my overly messy bedroom. I sat Steve down on my bed, trying to at least appear slightly organized by throwing T-shirts around. Steve just sat there, fiddling with his fingers and head flushed. What was he so nervous for? Oh. I suddenly understood and went to sit next to him, making him face me. "You know I was just teasing Clint, right? Nothing has to happen, not yet. Not if you're not ready." I said reassuring, rubbing his shoulder. "Really, nothing has to happen. Unless you want it to?" I asked, raising my eyebrow. He shook his head, looking at his folded hands in his lap. "Steve..What's wrong?"

"I don't want to disappoint you." He mumbled. I pulled him closer so that his head was resting on my shoulder.

"Steve, you are amazing. You won't disappoint me just because you don't want to have sex straight away. I think that's actually pretty sweet." I whispered in his ear. "Now tell me, what happened that changed your mind. Why were you so repulsed to begin with?"

"I'm not used to same sex relationships being OK. Back in my time, that just didn't happen. Men liked women and the other way around, the rest is forbidden, weird. I am supposed to be the role model American Citizen, how could I ever forgive myself for liking a man? And then there's Peggy. Peggy was my first love and I thought I just couldn't do that to her, be with someone else, forget her."

"Moving on is not the same as forgetting and you know what, I think she would be proud of you to cast aside all popular believe and be courageous and do what your heart says." I felt like a complete sap so I added, for good Stark measure, "22% of the male population of America is homosexual." I pointed out, rubbing his back comfortingly. He froze.

"I'm not homosexual." He snapped.

"So what, I'm a woman now?" I laughed.

"No, you're the only man I've ever considered dating, Tony. I'm HeteroandTonysexual, simple as that. Anyhow, I lashed out at you, I hoped I could make you angry so that you wouldn't like me anymore. But I didn't like it, when you acted distant, as if you disliked me. Just like before the Loki-incident." I hadn't particularly enjoyed it, either. "You are a good man at heart, Tony Stark, and I should have seen that from the beginning. All the mean things I said.. they just prove that you are a better man than me."

"I appreciate that, Steve, but I don't think that's quite true." I held my hand up, "Before you protest, I don't want to have a sappy 'No you are sweeter!'-session. Even though you seem to have awakened some kind of sappy part of me, I am still Tony Stark, and I do not participate in such shenanigans." Steve smirked at me.

"Oh, you wait and see. By the time I'm done with you, you are King Sap."

"And let me guess, you'll fill in as the textbook narcissist?"

* * *

Things were pretty much back to usual, which was good. I missed the light, easy atmosphere we Avengers had seemed to create for ourselves. Fury had even called to tell us how great Steve and my performance in the club had been, and he was satisfied with the photo's our fans had taken with their mobile phones and sold to the newspapers.

"So, are you guys a thing now?" Clint asked the next day as we were all recovering from yet another hangover. This time with ice cream, fruit and TV instead of shooting, shopping and drinking.

"Steve did sleep in his own bedroom tonight," Natasha mused.

"Perhaps Tony acts differently when it comes to Steve." Bruce suggested, all of them acting like Steve and I were not right there in the room with them.

"Judging by the color of Steve's cheeks, I'd say they're together." I, myself, didn't even know whether we were together or not. Steve was being vague. Sometimes, he would act a little distant, hesitant. When I encouraged him into a kiss, though, he seemed to recover and remind himself that yes, being with a man was OK. We never said 'I love you', not yet.

"Judging by the size of your head, I'd say you were born without a brain." I mumbled.

"Hey there, Tony, relax. If you really want us to, we'll stop bothering you."

"I'd like that." I admitted, feeling like there was something wrong. I didn't know what, but something felt out of place. Had I misinterpreted what Steve was saying? Did his change of mind bother me? I might not have been someone to make the right decisions. I mean, I have made a couple of bad ones. But if I had learned one thing through the years, it was to trust my intuition. So why was my intuition, just as things seemed to be working out with Steve, screaming at me that something was wrong?

**[A/N Sorry if I do not reply to reviews as quickly as I normally try to, internet is spazzing out.]**


	10. Chapter 10

**[A/N sorry I'm late. Bad mood = bad writing.]**

Part 10.

"Alright, guys. This is unacceptable." I said, poking at Steve's close-to-deceased-laptop. There was a picture of us, the Avengers, in our NY sweaters some random person had taken and put on the internet. Because people have nothing better to do than take pictures of us and gush about them on the internet, which makes us really cool. Not. Bruce, Natasha, Thor and Clint came to stand behind me, looking over my shoulder. Steve was absent today, still locked up in his room.

"What, it's just a picture, of us. I think it looks kind of nice." Natasha said.

"Well yes, you aren't the one posing as a canary here, alright." I said, eyeing the disgustingly yellow sweatshirt I had pulled myself into.

"I think you don't actually mind," She replied, grinning at me. What was she thinking, that she could just go on and disagree with my opinions. You don't do that, OK.

"What makes you so overly confident?" I asked.

"If you actually wanted it gone, you could have hacked into that website within seconds and it would be gone. I think you like showing off that you actually have friends." I snorted.

"Sure, Natasha. It's not at all like I kept the tab open to show you guys how disgusting fan-bases are." I answered, giving an eye-roll.

"Uhuh, keep telling yourself that." And I would, because I refused to believe that I was giving into a useless emotion such as sentiment. Steve chose that moment to walk up to me, still drunk with sleep. I closed his laptop quickly. Hiding it behind my back, because I believed that Steve was actually stupid/sleepy enough to believe I was not holding something against my back.

"Morning sunshine!" I joked, standing up to give him a hug. No kisses, I'd only kiss him if he asked for it. Because last time I just kissed him without asking… well you know what happened last time.

"JARVIS woke me, convincing me you were in danger and I needed to get up quickly. What the hell, man." Steve said, lightly touching his lips to mine and I actually felt butterflies in my chest because damn! This man actually had the ability to turn men into saps and I wouldn't be surprised if Fury was going to start and compliment people on their 'lovely outfits' after having spent some time with Steve.

"Oh that." I waved it off, "Thor actually tried making coffee using Dummy, who is programmed to be able to do some sort of coffee-making maneuver but usually just ends up throwing boiling water over everyone. I came to the rescue, but whenever dummy sees me he has this weird, _weird_ habit of throwing extinguishing foam all over me." I looked at Steve with big eyes, "that's just cruel, using his fire-extinguishing techniques to molest me!" Steve rolled his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure you programmed these techniques into him yourself."

"That makes it even worse!" I cried out, clutching at his tank top. He held one hand against my chest so I couldn't move, and reached behind me to grab his laptop from me. He smiled slightly at the photo.

"We should frame the photo and hand it on the wall or something." He said.

"Yes we should." Natasha was grinning at me again, because she loves to tease me in every possible way. I was almost starting to miss the day when she was undercover as my assistant, and I had the permanent urge to sleep with her. Almost.

"Nooooo" I groaned, trying to grab the laptop from Steve, who just held his hand in place on my chest. "Hey, you're forgetting one thing. You don't even know how to connect your laptop to a printer." I said, putting my hands on my hips and smirking at him.

"Natasha does, and I'm sure she will give me a hand. Won't you?" He asked, and they were both over-acting their innocence and batting eyelashes and all that stuff you do when you are trying to appear like you are not about to make your friend die of shame.

"No, she won't" I said through gritted teeth, giving her my best death glare.

"I think she will." Steve said smugly.

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it." Natasha smiled innocently.

"Go fuck yourselves." I mumbled.

"And let me watch!" Clint called from the couch.

* * *

We were having movie night tonight, which meant that all the Avengers would be sitting on and around our over-used couch, and there would be popcorn (which would probably all be consumed by Thor, anyhow). Jane had once again been invited over, and Bruce had asked the girl from the club, because he'd otherwise be the only one without a 'date' (everyone considered Natasha and Clint to be a couple, even when they furiously denied it. 'Love is for children', Natasha would say).

Everyone was sitting ready and on the couch, and I came walking from the kitchen with the popcorn, snacks and cans of soda all balancing on my hand's and pressed against my chest.

"Look, guys, I know it's hard to move for lazy ass people like you. But please, give the weak guy a hand." It was of course completely insane to have me carrying everything while there were a demi-God and a captain on some kind of steroids available. Thor rushed to my side in an instant.

"Brother, you must leave the heavy lifting to guys less vulnerable than you!" He said, waving his hands theatrically and taking a lot of the items from my hands, dumping them on the small table in front of the TV and allowing a bowl of popcorn to empty itself on the ground. Brilliant.

"Thor will be eating from the ground." I announced, flopping down next to Steve. "JARVIS, start the movie, please." I asked my loyal AI, and the gigantic 'I'm rich, bitch'-screaming flat screen lit up.

The movie turned out to be a bad choice. There was a romantic side-plot to the movie featuring two gay males, and how they struggled to belong in a society not as open-minded as we would all have liked it to be. The idea wasn't bad at all, if slightly over-used. However, one of the two was struggling to accept himself, and basically the whole idea was 'How can society accept him, if he doesn't accept himself?', yada yada. I wasn't the only seeing a resemblance between the characters and Steve and me, and careful eyes were darted at us now and then from our worried team-members. Steve and I both stared in the opposite direction, embarrassed and confused and not knowing how to deal with these emotions. When we were nearing the end of the movie, everyone could tell they were going to end up together and proud to be together, and I felt a pang of jealousy when a steamy make-out ensued. Considering I couldn't even give a kiss without permission.. Anyhow, the romantic part of the film left some of us (cough, clint, cough) with some undesired emotions and people were heading to their bedrooms. And there, I TOLD YOU SO, went Natasha and Clint together.

Basically, everyone was getting laid tonight (including the people in the movie, and when a superhero with my looks, fame and money starts to envy people in a film that's really, really sad) except for me.

"I want us to kiss like that." Steve suddenly said, and I didn't know whether that was a good thing (kissing with Steve = Rare & good), or a bad thing (Would this leave me wanting more than I could possibly get from him?).Too bad I've had my mind in the gutter for about 99% of my life, and today wasn't any different.

"Oh, can you get any more cute, awkward and sexy?" I sighed, my eyes roaming over his handsome features and landing on his lips. "You know, you can also scream: Tony, there is nothing I want more right now than your lips on mine, so get to it!" Steve blushed and stammered some unrecognizable words before burrowing his face in my chest. "Or.." I reconsidered, looking at this shy man, "perhaps you should keep doing it your way for the time being. Come on," I lifted his chin with my finger, looking in his eyes for a long time, trying to figure out the hesitation in them.

And perhaps it would have been better to be patient, to ask him what was wrong, to figure this out. But right at that moment I was way too interested in the offered make-out session he had in mind, so I ignored my guilty and screaming consciousness and pressed our lips together with fiery passion. I moved until I was laying on the couch, back flat against the surface and feeling Steve's weight pressing down on me. He leant on one strong arm, while the other was pressed against my stomach and oh, I could think of so many more places that hand should be going. But I reminded myself to lay still, to let him feel in control. He took control of the kiss, tongue exploring my mouth and nipping at the corners at times, and I gasped when he trailed kisses down my neck. His fingers grazed the underside of my tank top and gently began sliding it up, the big, soft palm of his hand moving over my stomach. And that's when that familiar sensation in my stomach grew, and as soon as I felt the stirring between my legs I knew that soon enough he would pull away and I'd be left to cope with my sexual frustration on my own. Right as I thought it, Steve froze, feeling my hard-on and slowly removing his hand from my stomach, sitting up on his knees with one of my legs still trapped between his. I sighed.

"Steve, it's OK."

"No," he shook his head and a tear rolled down his cheek. I sat up, too, and moved towards him, utterly confused and I couldn't help but wonder if Steve was really _this _sensitive, that he'd cry just because he was afraid to have sexual intercourse with a man.

"Steve what's wrong?" I asked. He shook his head again with multiple tear tracks now running over his cheeks, and reached for the hem of his T-shirt, slowly moving it over his head and that's when I finally _understood. _Right in the middle of his chest was a burn-mark, an unmistakable "L" burned into the beautiful pale flesh of my Steve.

**[A/N eeeh. Yes. Sorry, I will not be late again!]**


	11. Chapter 11

**[A/N Oh, the reviews.. You are making me so happy & motivated! That's good. Oh, and, see the cover? SEE IT? Also, take a look at my Avatar. Remember the picture with the sweaters? It's right there!]**

Part 11.

"Son of a bitch!" I said, pacing around my living room.

"Hey, that's my mother you are talking about!" Thor said angrily, starting to swing his hammer.

"Thor! It's figure of speech, calm down." Clint quickly stepped in, laying a hand on his shoulder and trying to calm him down.

"Still!" He roared, "This is my brother! We don't even know if he did anything!" I raised my eyebrow.

"Seriously, Thor, you can't actually believe he's still you brother." I spat, and Clint was now desperately trying to hold Thor back, "Besides, who else could have done it. Steve is practically untouchable, if he gets hurt, everything will heal within minutes, even the worst injuries. He doesn't get _scars. _This could only have been done by magic. And oh, how convenient, wasn't there that black haired, Rudolph-impersonating wizard we defeated? This is revenge, Thor. Or a warning. That's all there is to it."

"There are other wizards out there! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" I bellowed, trying to match up to his impressive volume, "That there," I pointed to Steve's exposed upper-body, "is the most beautiful chest in all of America, carrying the warmest heart in all of the world. And now it is _ruined _by that criminal!" I softened my voice, walking up to him (Clint had let go, but was still ready to jump in if needed) "What if something like this would happen to Jane? Would you be angry?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Well, I'm angry. And your brother is the only one who would do this. And why on the Steve? As revenge to me."

"What do you mean, you aren't the one with a giant L all over your abs." Natasha said.

"I am the guy dating him, though" I pointed out.

"Why would he want to take revenge on you solemnly? No offense, pal, but I think none of us could have done that on our own. It was team-effort." Clint said.

"None taken, but" I felt like I needed to keep pointing this out because people just _couldn't _believe that Tony Stark would do something selfless, "I caught a nuke out of the air and flew it into the ship of his hired warriors. I think he is angry and offended that such a _regular _person would be able to do something against him."

"So, what is he trying to tell us?" Bruce asked.

"That he's coming back," I told all my friends, "And this time, it's getting even more personal than last time." I said, eyeing Thor in particular. "Will you join us? Because if not I will seriously kick you out of my house, God or not." Thor looked at us all for a minute and _everyone _knew he would say something poetic pretty soon, probably something overflowing with rhetoric devices.

"My friends, we have fought beautiful wars together. Together we have faced the mischief of my brother before and succeeded in bringing peace to this amazing planet Earth. He might be family, and I have always thought of him as my little brother and I still do even though I know his true heritage. I love him dearly but when he dares to lay a finger on my friends.. I can not stand here doing nothing. I don't know what Loki has in mind, but shall it come to it, I will join you in a glorious battle!" See, I told you it was coming, but still I went to stand next to him to put my hand on his shoulder.

"What do you say, can we do this?" I smiled at the rest and everybody let out a little sound of excitement, except for Steve. Steve had been remarkably quiet.

So when we were alone in my workshop later that evening (I had gone straight to perfecting my new Iron Man suit after hearing of this new danger and was secretly enjoying the thrill of having Loki back), I tried to calm him some.

"Hey, Steve, you OK?" I asked, putting away my equipment and telling JARVIS to shut everything down for the night.

"Alright, I suppose." I walked up to him to peel his shirt off, tracing the L lightly and looking for signs of discomfort on Steve's face. There were none, so at least he wasn't in pain, that was good.

"When did it happen?"

"I don't exactly know, he must have wiped my mind clean or something, because I don't remember any of it. If I would have, I could have told you whether it was Loki or not." I sighed, throwing the shirt on the floor.

"You know.." I started, rubbing my hands over his broad shoulders, "Now that I know it's there," The burn mark, because he'd been uncomfortable showing it before, "will you sleep with me tonight?" Steve looked at me as if I'd just thrown away all my iron man suits, and I rolled my eyes. "Not have sex with me, stay with me. In bed, tonight." When he gave me a dubious look I added, "It might comfort you?" I moved my hand up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck and he knew I was waiting for either a response or a kiss and that he was so in charge right now.

"And," he said, eyes lazily locking on my lips, "What will you give me in return, Mr Stark?"

"My everlasting love and gratitude?" I tried with a smile.

"I was going for a kiss, but whatever you want." He said mock-stubbornly facing the other way, and I swore I would kill myself if I ever caught myself enjoying a playful domestic with Steve again. I grabbed hold of him again and I think for once we were on the same track because he met my lips quickly and immediately and it felt so _good _to have his bare skin under my fingers. I couldn't help but wonder if he was as glad to be in this position as I was, because he had been hesitant so far. I could tell that tonight wasn't the right time yet to start under-the-belt region stuff, but it was definitely going in the good direction when he picked me up and carried me to my room like I was as light as a feather. For once I didn't mind feeling like the woman in our relationship when I wound my legs around his waist and let him carry me. That made me happy and it made me feel those stupid tingles inside that you always hear about from teenagers, but it was nice none the less.

What kind of killed my mood was when Steve insisted on changing in the bathroom where I couldn't see him, but well, a guy can only take so much on one night. It irritated me, naturally, but I didn't say anything because I knew only bad things would come from it. I had never been prude, or afraid of anyone else's opinions about me, and hadn't cared for _usual_, _mainstream _or _ordinary._ So, it was hard for me to understand how Steve didn't just say 'fuck it' and sleep with a dude, but I supposed that was part of why I needed someone like Steve by my side. Someone to keep me from doing the stupidest of stupid things and Pepper had not been up for that. Oh God, now I was starting to compare him to my exes, stop it, Tony.

By the time Steve returned from the bathroom with his teeth brushed, legs into some jogging pants and upper body still bare, thank God, I had changed too, and made him sit down next to me on my bed. Loki's mark made me pull a face, but I chose to ignore it and look at Steve's face instead. I think we both looked like zombies, because we were so damned tired.

"Alright, if you feel uncomfortable for _any _reason, please don't hesitate to wake me up. I am used to no sleeping at all so it's OK. Got that?"

"Roger that," he replied with such a goofy smile on his face I almost wanted to ravage him again, but I somehow managed to control myself. I shooed him off the bed to pull the covers up and we both moved under them. Right. What now? I turned on my side to face him.

"I want to lay on the other side," I said in all seriousness. Steve rolled his eyes but did laugh, and I yelped when he totally dragged me over him to the other side. "I'll never get used to that strength of yours." I muttered under my breath.

In the beginning, it was kind of awkward because Steve was just laying there, not knowing what to do. So I picked up my tabled and showed the concept 'spooning' to him on WikiPedia.

"It says 'presumably a male and a female'!" He said, pointing at the screen.

"Well yes… presumably. Come on, Steve, you've got to do the works here. I will never, ever fit around your gigantic posture and you know it."

"So you'll admit you're the woman, then?" He smirked.

"If that's what it takes to get you to cuddle with me, then yes, I'll gladly admit to it."

"Alright, deal." He said, and I don't think he actually knew how much I was sacrificing. I mean, come on, my pride was on the line! I told JARVIS to turn the lights off, rolled onto my side and waited for Steve to curl around me. When he did, I breathed out a sigh of relief when I felt our bare, warm skins connect. I didn't expect to fall asleep so quickly, because I never do, but when I did I couldn't say it was particularly bothersome.

**[A/N here you go. There isn't even a Wikipedia about 'spooning'. Weird shit!]**


	12. Chapter 12

**[A/N I wrote this multiple times with different scenarios.. and nothing turned out well. Please keep in mind that, indeed, I'm a human and not a machine squeezing words out like it's nothing. I have a lack of inspiration sometimes, too xD!]**

**OH GOD I CHANGED IT. Sorry for uploading the wrong part. It was late.  
**

Part 12.

"You aren't going to succeed Loki. Last time, we defeated you with ease, we will not hesitate to do so again." I said, staring into the green eyes of our enemy. The atmosphere was.. weird. It was slightly misty, and we were in some kind of mountain range. Everything had a blue glow about it. The green eyes narrowed, not happy with the reminder. The frost-giant grinned then, a menacing grin that had 'mischief' written all over it.

"Perhaps," He said, lazily strolling towards me. "But back then, I didn't have this.." He held up a glove of some sorts, the knuckle area decorated with a knuckle-buster. "With this… I can do anything I wish… and more." He said, equipping the glove with his right hand. "Oh.. this glove..it's my baby.." he was stroking it with his left hand, "Oh wells. It's time for you to wake up now." He said nonchalantly, and mumbled a spell, waving his hand around for a bit.

I woke up covered in sweat and with Steve trying to push me back down.

"You weren't kidding when you said you sleep badly," he mumbled, "nightmares about Vietnam?"

"No." I breathed, desperately trying to get my mind wrapped around what just happened. What did actually happen? "This was different. Where's Loki?" I asked panicky, my breathing fast and labored, my forehead slick with sweat.

"Tony, calm down, he isn't here. You were just dreaming." Steve said, dismissing it and pulling me back to him, dazing back off to sleep. His warm body covering mine didn't do much comforting, and I couldn't understand it. He was right _there. _In my mind, in my _dream, _or on a weird blue-glowing planet. I didn't even _care _where. All I knew is that he was there, and that I was certain it had been him because my imagination was vivid, but not _that _vivid or truth resembling. And he had been _there._ I nudged Steve, and he groaned.

"You don't understand, Steve, he was right there. I swear, he was in my mind or something. I don't know! But that wasn't just a dream, I'd have forgotten it if it was a dream, right?" Steve rubbed his eyes.

"Alright, Tony. Just go back to sleep and if you still remember it when you wake up, we will do something about it then." I mumbled my agreement, but didn't sleep well the rest of the night. Not only because of the weird and terrifying memory of Loki, but also because Steve had been so skeptical, and the worst feeling in the world is when you say the truth, and nobody believes you.

* * *

As expected, when I woke up, everything was still as clear and vivid in my mind as it had been at 2 am. It might even have been clearer because I was now fully awake. I was kind of disappointed to find no body, excuse me, _nobody, _next to me. But I figured Steve hadn't missed hours and hours of sleep in the last couple of weeks, so he didn't have anything to catch up on.

So I did my usual morning routine on my own. My morning routine only consisted of throwing on something old and dirty and brushing away the left-over taste of alcohol. This time there was no alcohol, but no worries, I did brush my teeth anyway. Let's hope mommy is proud of me when she looks down at me!

When I walked into the kitchen as we all did when we woke up, as a sort of unmentioned agreement we all had, people were sitting, deep in conversation, and stopped when I walked in. All eyes locked on me.

"Did I interrupt something?" I asked sarcastically, "'Cause if you insist I'll leave. Of course I shouldn't be part of a _group meeting. _Or were you, perhaps, talking about me?" I was satisfied when everybody looked guilty. "And you!" I said, pointing at Steve. "Why was I doing my morning routine on my own? _On. My. Own?_" I made a point out of raising my eyebrow all Stark-like.

"Did you finally sleep together?" Natasha jumped in, saving Steve from answering.

"Yes." I said proudly, knowing that any moment now everyone would be baffled when I told them I was talking about the other meaning of sleeping with.

"And you didn't invite me?" Natasha whined, "That'd have been so hot.."

"The temperature might have been quite high yes, sleeping inbetween two males.." I smirked at her.

"Wait, so you didn't actually.. _sleep _sleep?" Clint asked. When I nodded, he let out a whistle. "Well, then Steve. If he is telling the truth that means you are actually very important to him." The archer continued, "Tony Stark doesn't just go all celibacy-like for no one." I smirked at everyone and Bruce actually clapped me on the shoulder.

"Good job, bro." he said, and we shared a fist-bump.

"You are such a respecting lover!" Thor smiled and shook my hand. Natasha just nodded, smiling at me. Well, that was enough for me.

"So, what were you talking about before I interrupted you?" I asked, flopping down in my chair next to Steve. They looked at each other in alarm, and I felt like I needed to clarify myself. "I know it was about me. What's up?"

"Steve says you're going crazy" Clint blurted out. I looked at Steve with narrowed eyes, and he held up his hands.

"No, no, no. That's not what I said." He said defensively, then turned to me and grabbed both my hands in his. "I was just worried about you, because you're under so much stress with the whole Loki thing, and the uhm.. celibacy.." Natasha snorted when he used the euphemism.

"Yes Steve that's very cute and all but I am absolutely, hundred percent sure that the conversation with Loki was real."

"Come on, Tony, what are the chances?" Clint said skeptically, and I rolled my eyes.

"OK, so you guys do believe he carved an 'L' in Steve, and you don't think he could have controlled my thoughts for a few minutes? That's rich." When they just kept staring at me I said, "Come on, guys! You don't _actually _believe I imagined that, do you? Do you really think I'd be as creative to invent some sort of glove Loki was going to use to destroy us all?" That's when Thor's eyes widened.

"Glove, you say?" He asked. I nodded and he looked at us in alarm, then rubbed his palms over his face.

"Oh.. I'm so stupid." If it were any other time and if we were not about to be revealed something that just had to be serious business, I would have happily agreed. "When we defeated Loki here on Earth.. I took him back to Asgard… I shouldn't have."

"What, why not?" I asked bluntly, trying to get him to speak faster and explain it already.

"We have a vault, in our kingdom. It contains some of the most legendary weapons in this universe." I let my head connect with the table.

"You've got to be kidding me." I wished out loud. "Your brother, our arch-enemy who was supposed to be in prison forever, got hold of a weapon with which he might be able to defeat us?" I asked, just to be sure I wasn't _really _going crazy like they expected me to. Thor nodded slowly, guilt written all over his face. "Well at least we know one thing now." I said.

"And that is?" Bruce asked, a defeated look already on his face.

"I'm not imagining things?"

**[A/N I have heard one thing or another about Loki getting some weapon with help of Thanos (the purple/blue dude you see in the scene after the first credits) in the comic books and coming back to kill them all, but this has nothing to do with that. This is just my imagination running wild.]**


	13. Chapter 13

**[A/N I apologize for my little misstep yesterday. Anyhow, after reading your reviews I did some research on the infinity gauntlet, but there are WAY TOO MANY VERSIONS of the story. One with a weird version of the Avengers, one of a by other heroes replaced fantastic 4, one with MARVEL heroes I have only vaguely heard of.. So I figured, why don't I write ANOTHER version, this time with Loki stealing it? Logic!]**

Part 13.

We needed a plan. I'd normally just go for it and destroy whatever is in my way, but I knew this required planning. If Loki had what Thor called the 'uendelig gapestokk', or as he was kind enough to translate, the infinity gauntlet, we were screwed. We were going to need all the help we could get, so went to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with the 6 of us. Thor had already thrown on his armor, Natasha and Steve were suited up and Clint had gotten his Stark custom bow from my workshop (even though we hadn't tested the explosion arrow set yet, so there you go, reason for disaster). So we basically looked like a bunch of weirdo's and Bruce and I were the weird ones out. If you feel weird between a demi-God and a man dressed in sparkly tights, there is something really strange going on.

Fury was pretty surprised when we were standing in front of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. hideout, looking all team-like and ready to kill some aliens. Our suited-up state (well, those of my team-mates, anyway, I wasn't about to walk around in a block of iron) clearly intimidated Fury because he immediately took us serious. He never does that, usually. Or maybe that's just me.

"So, what do we know?" He asked, when we were seated in one of the conference rooms.

"That Thor is incredibly stupid?" I mumbled, looking at him pointedly. Fury wasn't impressed by my attitude.

"Thor took him back to Asgard to put him in prison, it's what he was supposed to do." Bruce reasoned, because Bruce was always so kind to look at the situation of both sides before picking one.

"I think he shouldn't have." I said, raising my eyebrows, "I have got a theory. What if Loki lost the previous war on purpose, so he could come back to Asgard and gain entrance to your.. chamber of secrets or whatever it is you have there."

"I got the reference!" Steve suddenly said proudly, "Harry potter!" We all gave him the same dry, unamused look, and started making plans.

OK, so the real problem was, that we had no idea what we were dealing with. Thor was the only one who knew anything about the gauntlet, and he didn't know much. It was confiscated from a guy named Thanos way before Thor was old enough to understand what was happening. He said that word goes that whoever gets the gauntlet is the only one who can earn the praise and affection of lady Death. We were speculating if Loki wanted said praise from the lady, or if he was just trying to avenge his ego.

"Pride is a strong motivator to start a war." Thor said, his swinging fist enriching his statement.

"But love… is a much more stronger motivator." I said knowingly, looking at Steve from the corner of my eye. He met my eye, and he _knew_ I was going to murder Loki when I got my hands on him, because he had dared to lay a finger on my Captain.

We didn't know what to do but wait. Fury was thinking of hiring the fantastic 4, or trying to find Wolverine, but had chosen not to when he remembered the slow start our team had had last time. So we decided to have Jane check the sky for weird intervals and stuff that I don't know anything about, and we would all be having our sets of armor laying around my house now. Fury dismissed us, reminding us to tell him immediately when something changed or showed up, or when Loki contacted any of us through our minds. When were finally dismissed after an hour of bickering, figuring things out and long, stretching silences where nobody knew what to say or do, Fury decided it was OK to call me back.

"Stark!" He called, and I turned around, eyeing him suspiciously. "Don't forget your cleaning duty!" he said, gesturing to the abandoned coffee cups on the table.

"What? We aren't on a mission yet! I thought you were talking about demolished buildings, turned over cars, stuff like that!" because he _had _to be kidding. He simply could not be serious and who knows, maybe Fury really has a strange sense of humor.

He just smiled innocently and closed the door behind me, and I felt the self-destructive urges coming back.

* * *

"I don't wannaaaa" I whined at Steve, who was desperately trying to fix my drinking problem.

"But I 'wanna'" He said, wrinkling his nose when repeating the messed up form of English. He grabbed a few bottles from the fridge and threw them in the plastic box he had standing on the counter.

"No, don't touch that," I said hurriedly, grabbing my favorite, 400 dollar whine from him. I pouted when he took the bottle from me again, knowing that I couldn't win from his crazy-ass strength and puppy-dog eyes.

"No, Tony, this is going to go, too! And yes, I do know you have a secret stack in the cupboard in your workshop." He said warningly, picking up the box filled with _my babies. My. Babies._ You don't just.. take away my babies! Except Steve could, because he was strong, and had me completely smitten. God, I'm so pathetic.

I followed him all the way to the container outside, where he dumped them all into. I was almost crying.

"So, Tony, I've talked to JARVIS, and told him to not allow you to buy anything with alcohol in it."

"How am I going to survive this?" I asked, desperately clutching onto his arm.

"Well ,you have me for support? Come on, Tony. Your problem needs to be fixed, and I'm surprised no one told you so earlier. You are aware alcohol destroys your brain cells and makes your tummy fatty, right?" I nodded, "Well I don't want a stupid boyfriend with a fatty tummy. I'm pretty sure I chose for the genius with the abs." I smiled at him and he leaned down to give me a peck on the lips. "Alright, genius, let's get your de-alcoholized ass back inside, before your fragile self gets injured while trying to get his drinks back."

* * *

"What are you seeing, Jane?" Clint asked. We were sitting around the table, phone laying in the middle and on speaker mode with Jane on the other end.

"I can tell you that the paranormal frequencies surrounding the star cluster of-"

"English!" I interrupted her, and she let out a puff of air.

"Something has been changing in the sky. I don't know how he is going to create a portal this time. Perhaps with the tessarect again, but I think the Destroyer might have been guiding that."

"The what?" I asked.

"The destroyer," Thor supplied, "He is the guard of our chamber. However, Loki managed to get the gauntlet, that means he managed to get the tessarect."

"Well all I know, is that something is going to happen very soon, judging by- Oh my God!" She screamed, and we all looked at each other questioning.

"Jane are you alright?" Thor asked.

"Yes, but my computer suddenly caught onto something. There seems to be-" I picked up the phone and hung up, surprisingly, for her own good. If Loki knew she was involved again, we wouldn't know how much protection she would need to keep him away from her.

"It's happening." I said, practically _feeling _the magic surrounding us. "He's here."

**[A/N Oh god, this chapter is crappy. OH GOD don't kill me.]**


	14. Chapter 14

**[A/N somebody reviewed that it was not Vietnam but Afghanistan where Tony was held prisoner. You are right, good sir/ma'am, but that was in the movierverse. This was just a reference to the comic books for those who got it :)]**

Part 14.

I was pumped with adrenaline, and as we all know I love using my Iron Man suit. But the first minutes were scary, because I actually had to get my suit first. The sky was already darkening from the thunderclouds Thor was collecting, charging up his hammer. Natasha, Clint and Steve were coming with me to my workshop, where our gear was laying. I threw Clint his bow and a couple of sets of arrows.

"This one," I pointed to one with a yellow bud at the end, "Can be fired from a close distance, too. If somebody gets up close, you can still shoot them. You know what the rest does. Oh, do watch out, this bow is still a little sturdy because it hasn't been used yet." Clint nodded and went for one of the glass showcases where his uniform was laying. I threw some new, sharpened knifes towards Natasha, and they landed in the wall next to her.

"Thanks, Stark, for almost throwing a knife in my head." She muttered, not quite managing the sarcastic tone due to nerves.

"Almost." I repeated, smile slightly strained due to my _own _nerves. It wasn't just my own live and the lives of my friends I would be fearing now. It would also be my boyfriend's, which was a new thing altogether.

"Steve" I said, tossing him his costume. He started stripping off his clothes, for once too focused on something else to be prude. I wanted to stare, wanted to take in everything glorious inch of his body, but I managed to look away. Some might gush over how sweet that is off me, but it really wasn't. I just wanted to keep his beautiful self a secret until he would show me voluntarily, because I've learned that it's always nicer when Steve does something voluntarily instead of against his will. Clint certainly thought this didn't apply to him and Natasha, because he didn't hide his obvious interest in her now half-naked body.

"And here's your shield, I had it re-polished by JARVIS after the paintwork got messed up last time." I tried to keep my voice steady as I handed Steve his best piece of equipment, but seeing him taking the shield made me realize how close I could come to losing him tonight. Oh God, I realized I loved him. Clint and Natasha were done, their eyes focused and their bodies rigid with excitement. They looked at us, decided we needed some time alone, and went for the door of my workshop. "No, wait. Fist-bumps first." I smirked and they managed a little smile back, bumping my fist and moving out. I looked at the door where they had just left from, wondering why there couldn't be someone else dealing with Loki. It was too bad that Loki had specifically aimed for us..

"Tony." I turned around and looked at my Captain. His mask was still off, Blonde hair poking in different directions from shoving shirts over his head. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, searching comfort in squishing my cheek against his chest.

"I'm afraid." I muttered. "Not to battle.. to lose you." I admitted, feeling vulnerable and exposed, but safe and comforted at the same time.

"I know." He said, "But we shouldn't be worrying, we can do this."

"Yeah.." I sighed, closing the distance between us so that our lips could meet with a fiery passion that could only be created by two people so desperate for each other, knowing that this might be the last time they could do this. "Let's do it tonight.." I started,

"For all we know, we might not have tomorrow.." Steve laughed, and we looked at each other for what might have been ages, before realizing that one of us had to say it first.

"I love you" I said, and Steve let out a breath in relieve.

"I love you too." He answered, left our embrace and hopped up the stairs, leaving me alone to put on my suit.

"JARVIS, make sure to keep track of mr Rogers' position, altitude, health and location at all times for me. Lose track of him for one second, and you will donated to the University of Techonology and Energy management, are we clear?"

"Yes, sir. Mr Rogers is currently in your living room, watching the transformation of Bruce." JARVIS supplied, and I went to fetch my suit.

* * *

I was flying above Manhattan, scanning the area for our favorite wizard. "Any sign yet, Thor?" I asked Thor, who was running and flying around searching for his brother as well.

"No," he said back to me through the communicator.

"Fury, we can't find him." I muttered.

"Keep looking." I heard Natasha say.

"JARVIS, scan this building." I said, eyeing the abandoned church suspiciously.

"It seems like our suspect is in there, Sir. Should I search for a picture to compare?" JARVIS told me, showing me the silhouette of what could only be the demi-God

"No, I'm pretty sure our Diva is there." I mumbled, eyeing the outrageously grant building and deciding that yes, this must be what Loki had in mind when he was thinking for a right spot to torture me. I actually walked through the doors, not wanting to shatter any windows yet until it was absolutely necessary, because I knew that _I _would be the one to clean it up afterwards. Sure enough, in the back of the church where a statue of Jesus was supposed to be sitting, was Loki, reindeer costume and all.

"Hey, Rudolph, ready for a fight?" I asked, knowing he could hear the mocking tone even through the distorted voice of my Iron Man.

"No.." He said, lazily stroking the glove from my dream. It was right there! Ha! I had a little moment of triumph when I saw it. "I am here to make a deal with you. A bargain, so to say."

"Yeah… no. Not happening. We don't need to make deals with somebody we can defeat. Guys I-" I went to inform the rest of our team of his location, when Loki cut me short.

"I can heal Steve's scar." He said quickly, preventing me from calling the rest. "But I think…" He continued when I had fallen quiet, "The others won't quite agree with what I had in mind. You better not call them, or they'll keep you from accepting this deal. And we both know you want Steve back intact, right?"

"Tony, did you want to say something?" I heard Natasha through the communicator. I tried to organize my thoughts and while everything was pointing in the direction of 'no, do not listen to his talk, you know he is only trying to trick you', the possibility of getting Steve back without Loki's mark on him made me decide to do this on my own. As I had always done things.

"No, no it's nothing." I mumbled to Natasha, cutting off the connection between me and my teammates. "What is it that you want in return?" I asked him, and he got up from his place on the altar.

"You." He said, grinning at me. And at that instant I knew that whatever he wanted to do with me, he could have it all. Because I would do anything to keep Loki from damaging Steve more.

I walked up to him, closing my suited hand around his gloved one, sealing the deal.

**[A/N oooooh suspense! xD Already writing the next one, no worries.]**


	15. Chapter 15

**[A/N Note: This was first placed after chapter 20, but time-wise it might just as well have been placed here. So yeah.]**

Part 15

At least I wasn't stuck in a cave this time.

I was thrown into a cellar roughly, because it turned out that despite being from another planet, Loki was such a cliché Earthly kidnapper. Oh come on! I was probably going to spend weeks with this guy, the least I could expect was some creativity, right?

I groaned when my cheek connected with the ground, my hands tied behind my back and unable to break my fall. I didn't dare to move, afraid that if I did, I might hurt myself even more.

"Right where you belong, at my feet." Loki spat, foot landing on my head to keep it pressed against the ground. It was pitch dark in here, but Loki had excellent night-vision, do doubt.

"Your feet dressed in ridiculous out of the time drapes, if I may say so." I said, which resulted in his foot pressing my head harder against the ground. I managed to keep in my yelp of pain and discomfort, pressing my mouth in a thin line. Loki let out a chuckle.

"Oh, your pride. If I didn't know any better, I'd say yours was even bigger than mine-" He sighed as if sentimental about his own pride, and I had the serious urge to puke because of the messed up situation I had managed to get myself in.

"You don't know any better, because as far as I know you are still the lesser, adopted brother of the _real_ king of Asgard." I shot back at him, speech slightly disturbed by the crunching sound of my jaw being pushed into the floor.

"Well," He continued as if I hadn't spoken, "Your pride is about to be broken." His foot left my face and I sat up, pushing myself up against the wall and massaging my cheek. He ignored what I said, not answering verbally. But I knew that what I said had hurt him, even if he didn't want me to know. The problem was that I knew how he felt, and that I almost wanted to pity him because I knew the feeling of reject. I didn't want it to be true, but I knew that Loki and I were so similar in so many ways. He walked away from me, and I could barely make out the shape of his back due to the dark

"The day my pride is broken is the day that your father loves you." I cocked my head to the side, "Which is, oh- Never!" I said to his back and he paused his steps for a second before placing his hand on the handle of the door.

"I will bring your food later, filthy human"

* * *

I didn't make an attempt to escape, mainly because Loki probably had the whole place guarded by magic anyway, and I didn't want to know what the consequences would be of such an action. I told myself that that was the cleverest option, because it wasn't like I was actually obeying him. Right?

I wondered idly whether they were missing me, looking for me. I didn't even know whether they had found my suit, or whether they knew that I was missing. Maybe they thought I had just done something stupid and ran off. What would happen if they weren't even looking for me? Would I be stuck here forever, at the mercy of Loki?

The sound of a creaking door caught my attention, and a minuscule amount of light made its way inside, quickly disappearing again when Loki closed the door behind him.

"It's time for your training." Loki clapped in his hands, and the room filled with artificial light created with magic.

"Loki, you did know I'm not your puppy, right?"

"Silence, you don't speak when I don't allow you to." Loki snapped, pushing me down on my knees from my standing position. I groaned in protest when my knees hit the floor hard. "That's right." He smiled down at me, looking as if he would start saying things like 'that's my boy' pretty soon, and I heavily resisted the urge to spit on his feet.

"Listen, reindeer games." I said, looking up at him daringly and feeling quite brave, "This is your move? You are going to try to break me, of all people? You know what will happen, right? Maybe you will succeed, maybe, by the time you are done with me I will be a blabbering mess that obeys your every command and that can't stand up for himself. But they will come – Your brother, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow.. Steve. And the more you screw me up, the worse off you will be. They are the Avengers, and they will Avenge every bit of me that you dare to destroy." He crouched before me, face dangerously close to mine,

"No, Tony, because they don't need you. You are just an ordinary little human. You are not _special_. What would they need you for? For your narcissism, your _charm?_ Oh let me guess, they must like you so much because you are such an amazing team-player." He smirked when he saw my head drop, and I stared at the cuts in my jeans just so that he wouldn't see me struggling to keep my face blank. "Yes, they must be missing you greatly." He jumped up from his crouching position, pulling me up to my feet and dragging me along by a piece of my shirt.

"I would do it myself, watching you shatter inch by inch, but for now you'll just be stubborn anyway. I will leave my men to it, and I'll see how much is left of you by the time I come to check up on you. I have some business.. with.. what did you call your little boy-band? The adventurers? How cute."

"Avengers," I hissed under my breath, "What are you going to do with them?"

"Tsk-tsk. Don't you know better? Of course I'm not going to tell you that, that would ruin all the fun!" He grinned at me, opening the door and gesturing for two men to come in, their gazes suggesting that both were under one of Loki's spells. He closed the door behind him after giving me a huge smile, and left me in the hands of his thugs.

They walked up to me, and I instantly backed away, trying to recall every boxing lesson I'd ever gotten from Happy and trying to plan out scenarios in my head with the imaginary sound of JARVIS' voice helping me out. The attempt was futile though, as both men were muscled and trained, probably two kidnapped agents from the CIA, or from S.H.I.E.L.D., or any other organisation that trained scary muscled men for fun.

I walked backwards and away from their menacing glares until my back hit the wall, and I cursed under my breath, feeling so utterly helpless without my suit on. If I evaded their moves, it would only tire me out and I would end up beaten up either way. Just handing myself over to them seemed a bit coward-like though, like I was giving in to Loki.

My thinking time was over, then, as they had approached me, both a blank face and dilated pupils from Loki's magic. Both grasped one of my arms, and as much as I tried to punch, wiggle, shout and kick, I knew that it was futile as soon as they had me pressed to the ground face down, one keeping my legs down and the other restraining my hands.

When I had offered myself in order to protect Steve, I knew it could never end well. Just like you know how that when Natasha is on her period you should stay at least 4 feet away from her at all times because you might otherwise be in danger. At the time, I thought I had made the right decision, 'protecting the ones you love, that's the most important thing in life' Pepper had once told me. But now, as I was dragged towards what looked suspiciously like a heap of chains, I was starting to think that maybe, I should have considered my options before accepting the deal like a maniac.

I spent my night chained to the wall by my wrists, on my knees on the floor and unable to move from this position. If sore knees, a pained back and strained muscles weren't enough to keep me awake the whole night, I was sure that the cuts on my back from the tens of lashes they dealt to me would keep me in agony for a while.

The first twenty lashes, I managed to muffle any attempt at a scream I made. After that, I lost count of the amount of sobs, screams and shouts that left my dry mouth, deciding that maybe it was better to leave with a broken personality, than with a broken body.

**[A/N I apologize for any confusion, for I am still busy replacing chapters.]**


	16. Chapter 16

**[A/N **

**To Anon 'write write': Yes, quite a bit of drama! Thank you for your review :)]**

STEVE POV

Part 16

"Guys, could we all assemble on my roof, please?" Tony said through our communicator.

"Wait, why?" I asked, confused. "Have you spotted Loki?"

"No.. it's something else." Tony said, and he sounded different, like there was something wrong. Maybe that was just me. I ran the familiar stairs of his gigantic building with two steps at a time, hurrying my way to the top. When I was half-way, I heard Natasha, Barton, and a now re-clothed and de-Hulked Bruce following me. When I reached the roof, Tony was already sitting there in his regular clothes, looking uncomfortable and rubbing his hands together.

"Tony, are you alright?" I asked, and his face set, eyes determined and mouth a thin line.

"No, definitely not." He said, lips turning into a scowl which did not suit his face. Thor came flying around then, hammer thumping on Tony's roof and miraculously not making a dent in it. It made me wonder if Tony had Thor-proved his roof after the last time Loki came around. Shortly after, Barton, Natasha and Bruce arrived, Bruce slightly out of breath.

"This better be good." Bruce mumbled, shifting and uncomfortable in his from Thor borrowed clothes.

"Well then, Tony, what's up?" Barton questioned, and Tony made sure we were all focusing our attention on him before he spoke.

"I'm sick of this." Tony said, and my brow furrowed in confusion, "I'm sick of flying around looking for some reindeer because I happen to live with this demi-God named Thor. I'm sick of spending my fuel, my materials, my money, my time and my energy in this crap. Do not interrupt," He spat when I tried to open my mouth, "Then there is Romanov, who thinks it's necessary to spy on me all the time. And Clint, who is permanently eyeing her and annoying the fuck out of me."

"Well your ogling on Steve isn't particularly tasteful, either!" Barton shot back.

"Oh, don't get me started on _Steve._" He said my name like it was something he wanted to chew and then spit out again, and my friends watched in as much horror as me when Tony walked to stand right in front of me, "Steve, who thinks he has the right to reject me when I'm all he really has. I'm a piece of Howard Stark, I'm a direct link to his past. I've helped him greatly and still he still has the nerves to reject me." His voice sounded mechanical, distant. Like it was Tony speaking, but not really Tony. "Well you didn't _really _think I was going to keep up with that forever, did you?" I gulped, and I was afraid of what he was going to say next. Tears had already started to form in my eyes, and I wanted to slap myself for allowing myself to be sad over a man that could say things like this. "Well, I didn't. When you went to a baseball game with Clint, I drove over to Pepper's and fucked her. Just like that." No. This wasn't happening. My world started to spin and I didn't understand it. Hadn't he said that he loved me? Hadn't he said it was _OK? _

"You bastard!" Natasha shrieked, came to stand between us and punched him in the face. The impact actually made Tony fall to the ground, and he sat there for a moment, a pissed off Natasha standing over him. "Doing that to poor Steve. How could you! Get out, I don't care whether it's your house, it's 5 against 1. Get your filthy ass out." She said. Bruce was looking at Tony, disbelief written all over his face, and Clint was shaking his head. Thor was clearly angry with Tony, and I just stood there, unable to move until Tony started making his way down the stairs to exit his own building. His shoulders were squared and he didn't look guilty.

"Tony" I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked back at me, jaw set and eyes ablaze with anger, and I let go, defeated.

"Steve," I heard Natasha behind me, going for soft and comforting, but her anger for Tony ruining the idea. "We've got you." She mumbled when I fell to my knees, shield making a clanking noise when it fell on the ground. She kneeled beside me and pulled me into a hug, and I wanted to slap myself again and again for allowing myself to be lured into his trap.

"How could I expect him to be different when it came to me?" I asked her, leaning onto her shoulder and refusing to let any tears slip from my eyes. She shushed me and stroked my hair like I was a baby, and I didn't even mind.

"Hey man, that's just Tony. Don't get too upset about it, he will be begging for your affection and forgiveness in several days. Mark my words." Barton clapped me on my shoulder and walked away, Bruce and Thor following him to tell Fury that our search for Loki was temporarily put on hold.

"Steve, get up. Stop making a mess of yourself. This is just Tony, you guys weren't even dating for very long," Then why did it feel like ages? "and this is just another of his dick-moves. Just.. don't think it was your fault or anything idiotic like that, because this was all on him. Alright?" She gave my back a final rub before standing up and reaching her hand out to pull me up with her.

"Alright." I nodded, but I doubted that I could ever forget the cold look Tony gave me and the nonchalant way in which he told me he had cheated on me.

* * *

Tony had actually left his house, and hadn't called, or showed up ever since Natasha had ordered him out. I didn't know where he was staying, I could only imagine it was somewhere where he could 'fondue' with a lot of women. I couldn't say that I didn't miss him, but I was glad that he was out of my way for a while. I didn't miss _Tony_ I missed the pretent-Tony with which he had lured me in.

It was a few days after his disastrous escape that I found myself looking at another man, like I would normally have knocked myself out for doing. I did stop myself as soon as I found myself ogling him though, because I noticed that he resembled Tony way too much. Besides, Barton was convinced that Tony had just been in one of his moods, and that he was too stubborn to come back so early. Barton said that Tony really loved me, and that I should just wait for him to come back. But I was too afraid that he meant what he'd said, and why shouldn't I? There was really no reason, and Natasha was right. I shouldn't be bawling over Tony when we'd only dated for three weeks. I did cry sometimes, remembering the way he made me feel special, because I was the only man he'd dated and one of the few people in general. And because he was willing to wait with the love making. Well, turns out that wasn't true, after all.

We went back to searching for Loki sometime after, because Fury had had a sighting of him, so he was on Earth after all. Just like Tony had said, because Tony was _always_ right. It was weird working with our team but without Tony, and we sort of missed the sarcasm and humor to keep us entertained during the boring search for Loki.

I was walking through the streets, when I spotted a glimpse of red. Curious what a piece of red was doing polluting the streets in front of a church, I made my way towards it. It was a suitcase, red and gold, and it immediately reminded me of Tony and his Iron Man costume. Curious.

"Guys, I found something. Thor if you are close, come take a look if this is one of your weird legendary weapons or something. Oh and take Hawkeye with you."

"I will be on my way, fellow soldier." Thor said, smile almost hearable through his voice. It wasn't long before I heard the unmistakable sound of Thor thumping down on the ground after a flight. Barton was limp in his grasp, perhaps seeing a little bit green.

"Alright, I will have to admit that flying with Tony is more comfortable." He said, hand massaging his neck when Thor let him out of his grasp. "What did you find?" I held up the suitcase and Barton squinted his eyes.

"That isn't some Asgardian treasure, Steve! That- That is Tony's portable suit!" huh, he has those too, eh. "This is the one he left in, last week."

"Wait, what?" I stammered. "So if this is his suit.. Where is Tony?" I asked, and they looked back with me with as much questions as I had myself.

**[A/N Painful, but it had to be done. He needed to escape from them without them noticing something was wrong, or they'd stop him and Steve would be in danger. But of course he didn't ask for help.. Oh Tony please do think things through next time, okie?]**


	17. Chapter 17

**[A/N meh.]**

Part 17.

"We've got to bring this back to Tony's, have Natasha have a go at hacking into JARVIS' system." Clint said, inspecting the suitcase and letting his fingers glide over the beautifully polished surface. Now that I took a better look at it myself, I too could see that this whole thing had Tony written all over it. From the perfectly chosen color combination, to the neatly finished edges and the stylish design.

"Sir," I said to Fury through that weird device that was even scarier than cell phones. I wasn't sure if I should worry about Tony now, because Tony did dumb stuff all the time and I never knew when there was something serious going on. "We sort of found Tony.. but not really Tony."

"What in the devil's name are you talking about?" Fury asked, and I couldn't help but picture Loki for a second.

"We found his suit. I mean, his suitcase-suit, if that makes any sense at all."

"Well that depends on where you found it, Rogers."

"Near a church in Manhattan. It was laying a few meters away from the street, but when a ray of sunlight hit it, it caught my eye."

"And you are sure this belongs to Tony Stark?" I confirmed this, and he made a humming sort of noise for a while, probably thinking. "When was the last time anyone came into contact with Stark?"

"As far as I know, sir, the last time any of us came into contact with him was when mrs Romanov sent him out of the Tower. That was.. one week ago. I wanted to text him," I said, suddenly feeling guilty for not talking to Tony in a week, "but I didn't know how to." I admitted. "We should phone Mrs Pepper and ask if she has any clue of his whereabouts."

"If she doesn't, contact me immediately. Stark is too important to lose." Fury answered and broke the connection. He might have sounded cold, but I'm sure he wasn't just thinking about Tony's fighting abilities. Not even his important, binding role in our team. I think Fury might have actually sounded concerned, and it worried me. Because up until then, I hadn't even considered that Tony might be missing. His words echoed through my head.. 'don't just believe everything that comes out of my mouth. I say the stupidest things all the time'. For the first time since he left, I actually considered that what he had said might not be true, and I instantly felt guilty for relying on a few words he'd said instead of on all his actions over the past weeks.

"Let's just hope he hasn't done something idiotic." I mumbled, and followed the others back to what was now called the 'Avenger's Tower'.

* * *

"Alright, Natasha, have a go." Barton said, throwing the suit on Tony's desk. We were in his workshop, and the funny thing was that now that Tony was gone, JARVIS didn't respond anymore. It was quite something to get used to him, but it was another thing altogether to get used to his absence. We had to open our own windows again. Go. Figure. Natasha took hold of the case, pressed a few buttons and part of it actually unfolded. It didn't form into an entire Iron Man suit yet, but there was.. some form of electricity going on.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the middle where two sides had parted, allowing us to see the round hole where Tony's Arc Reactor was supposed to go through. There was a sort of.. I was running out of descriptions because I couldn't name any of the difficult technological parts of Tony's suit, and I just realized that Tony was even cleverer than I originally thought.

"This is JARVIS' software," Bruce explained, taking out what I knew to be a computer chip. "If we can hack through the mainframe, and thus get into the commands history, we might be able to see what Tony commanded last to JARVIS, and Tony might even have been storing video-material of the search for Loki on here. We won't be able to get as far as to be able to control JARVIS, but a command list shouldn't be too difficult." Bruce looked up at me, "Something might have happened that caused him to say what he did, Steve. He might not have walked out on you after all." I didn't know whether I should be glad to know that Tony might still love me after all, or whether I should be afraid that something bad had happened to him.

"While you do your.. computer-chip business, I'm going to call Pepper." I said hurriedly. I hadn't called Pepper right after Tony had gone because I was too ashamed to talk to her. While she ought to be the one ashamed because she slept with my.. boyfriend? I couldn't help but be embarrassed for assuming that Tony could be different when it came to me. But now that I knew there was hope that he hadn't actually slept with her (though I highly doubted it), I wanted to hear it from Pepper herself.

"Alright." Bruce said dismissively, already having started to type things into Tony's floating computer screens. I walked up the stairs, past the by a tantrum-throwing Tony broken glass planes, and hopped into my bedroom. I dialed the contact 'Pepper', which Tony had, by a miracle, put into my phone in case of Arc-Reactor emergencies (According to Tony, she had a small hand with which she could easily replace a defect one for a working one).

"Hello?" I didn't think I had ever seen or heard Pepper before, but I had certainly imagined her voice to be as soft and sweet as it was. If you can stay by Tony's side so long without him throwing you in the trash-can like a piece of garbage, that meant you had to have excellent self-control and patience.

"Hello eh, Mrs Potts. I'm Steve Rogers." She fell quiet for a while.

"Steve. Did Tony do something outrageous? If you need me to I'll slap him across the face for you." She said, and I could tell that she was serious business. That meant they hadn't slept together, right?

"I think mrs Romanov might have taken care of that." I chuckled, but then blurted out, "Did you, did you guys sleep together?" I face-palmed, frustrated at my own awkwardness, "I mean- I don't mean." I took a deep breath. "I meant recently." Pepper groaned.

"Oh God, what has he told you?" Did she mean that he had said something about them sleeping together that he wasn't supposed to say, or did she mean that he had once again said something stupid just so that we wouldn't worry about his well-being and he could suffer in silence? I couldn't tell.

"Pepper, I need to know."

"Of course not, Steve!" She said, like I was extremely unintelligent for even considering it, "He loves you, why would he do that? Tony might not be good with relationships, but he is smart enough to understand that cheating isn't part of the deal. How could you even expect that to be true?" She sighed, "You two really need a handbook on how to deal with feelings. Look, Steve," She paused, and I heard the sound of her drumming her fingers on the table, "I don't know why Tony would say such nonsense, that's for you to find out. But don't listen to his words, look at his actions."

"Yes, I figured that out, alright. Have you seen him lately?"

" No, not in months. I'm on holiday in Venice, so we only text now and then. He hasn't answered my texts in a week or so, so I figured he was either being busy, or being stupid. Turns out it was the latter." She mumbled.

"Ok, thank you" I turned to hang up, but Pepper broke the silence.

"Steve.. did something happen to Tony?"

"I'm not entirely sure yet, Pepper. We still have to find out."

"Call me when you've got news." I agreed, and we both hung up at the same time, probably equally worried and confused.

* * *

Later that night, when I went to bed (in Tony's bed, because I liked his smell) , I was undressing in front of the mirror when I noticed something. The mark. It wasn't there. I was terribly confused because yesterday when I changed I was sure it was still there. I stared at myself in the mirror for some time, then tore my gaze away and looked down to be sure that I wasn't imagining things. I touched the spot where it used to be, and it was just smooth, white skin.

My brain was making over-hours that night when I was trying to sleep. Nothing was making sense. Tony disappears, telling me that he cheated on me and that I was just his boy toy. A week later we find his abandoned suit laying around a church, and it turns out he was lying. Which didn't make sense because Tony had been so damn proud that he had made a relationship last this long without any sexual intercourse whatsoever. Why would he try to smear this great achievement of his? Why would he try to make me dislike him? And more importantly, where had he gone now? And then there was the mark that had miraculously disappeared.

I could only guess what was going on here.

**[A/N Oh our poor babies! Thank you TheDreamerLady for pointing out my plot-hole. ehhe.]**


	18. Chapter 18

**[A/N I rewrote this a million times, trying to make it more interesting. So yea.]**

Part 18.

I awoke the next morning with a massive headache, probably due to a lack of sleep. I wished I could have slept more, but daylight was already coming in through the windows, so I must have woken up from that.

I stumbled out of bed, still slightly sleepy, and almost knocked over Tony's flat-screen and then _even_ the framed picture of the Avengers in New York fell victim of my unruly movements. I wondered since when I wasn't a morning person anymore before remembering that I had dated Tony Stark, night animal, for 3 weeks.

After neatly combing my hair, dressing into clothes I deemed appropriate (including the pants Tony had bought for me when we went shopping in NYC) and brushing my teeth several times because to me there is nothing more annoying than the taste of sleep lingering in your mouth, I went to fetch some breakfast from the kitchen- and dining-area. It wasn't any different from a regular morning when I saw Natasha and Bruce with their heads on the table, looking like zombies and Thor and Barton fighting over what to make for breakfast this morning.

"I demand chocolate cake!" Thor shouted, throwing his fist on the counter and waving a chocolate cake recipe in front of Barton's face.

"Yes, Thor I heard you the last 5 times," Barton rolled his eyes, "And I said we will eat your cake for desert."

"I want it NOW" Thor complained, looking like a 6ft baby on steroids.

"Why don't you just make both?" I suggested, grabbing an offered cup of coffee by a not even half-awake Natasha. Barton shrugged and looked at Thor, who was still looking sullen but agreed on making both toast with bacon and chocolate cake (because everyone knows that's the most delicious combination in the world). I took a sip of my coffee and noticed that it tasted a little.. weird. "I don't take sugar in my coffee." I commented, and Natasha gave me a death-glare that could only mean that I had to deal with it because she had put her effort into it despite her obvious lack of sleep. So I went back to sipping my sugary coffee without any more protests. "So, long night yesterday, eh?" I asked, trying to make some conversation because I was really starting to feel uncomfortable under Natasha's glare (she was keeping an eye on me to see if I was really actually drinking her coffee and not secretly throwing it in the sink).

"Well, _some _people haven't been idle. Bruce and I were trying to hack into JARVIS' system."

"I know that I'm not exactly an expert, but I thought hacking into JARVIS was close to impossible."

"Close being the key word." Natasha smirked. When I was about to ask the obvious question of whether they had succeeded, Natasha held her hand up. "But we didn't need to hack into JARVIS. Tony granted us access to most of the software. We can look at the commands history, and I think we might be able to get JARVIS to work for us again using a guest account. We won't have access to _everything_ because Tony Stark isn't really one to allow people into his personal business. But we have everything it takes to use the greatest software in the world." Natasha smiled.

"Oh- Okay." I said, confused. "So did Tony knew he would somehow come into danger and was he trying to steer us in the right direction to find him?" I asked, only mildly mesmerized by Tony's scary amount of brain cells despite all the alcohol he'd drunk in his life.

"Exactly." Bruce said in a fond and proud way and I think we were all starting to realize how much we were missing our textbook narcissist.

"Wow." I mumbled, "So something must have happened that night that convinced him that he needed to tell us how to find him." Natasha nodded, distracted by finding one of Tony's high-tech tablets. When she returned to my side, she showed me the command list. The list was featuring only the last 20 or so commands from an estimated million commands Tony had ever given to JARVIS. Natasha smiled and rubbed my shoulder gently, pointing to one command in particular. She hit the play button and we heard Tony's voice echoing through the room (I was strangely affected by hearing the sound of his beautiful voice again).

"JARVIS, make sure to keep track of mr Rogers' position, altitude, health and location at all times for me. Lose track of him for one second, and you will be donated to the University of Techonology and Energy management, are we clear?"

"I already feel sorry for slapping him." Natasha mumbled, then turned to me, "You are so lucky, Steve Rogers, for encountering love like this. I wish I had something like that." She sighed, and I was convinced that her eyes darted to Barton (still busy with cooking his damn bacon) for a split second.

"I feel kind of bad for not checking up on him now." I said, scrolling through the rest of the commands. There wasn't anything that stood out in particular, but I couldn't help but think that Tony was trying to tell us something. Why leave a hole in your software so that your friends can get into your system, and not include anything else but a list of commands?

"Don't be, we all thought he was just jerking around as usual. He didn't anything to suggest otherwise, so it was all on him, really." And maybe Natasha thought she was making an incredible amount of sense, but Tony _had_ said something that suggested that the crap that had been coming out of his mouth had been nonsense. He had told me he loved me, and I was so angry at myself for taking that as an incentive to distrust the hurtful things he had said.

"We shouldn't have believed him. We should have tried to figure out what was wrong and helped him. You know he always tries to do things on his own."

"Steve, don't blame yourself for this. This was Tony's own, perhaps stupid, choice. All we can do now is follow his hints and track him down." I nodded, but wasn't entirely convinced. She was right, however. Since I had failed Tony before, or at least that is how I felt about it, I would do everything in my power to get him back. So I settled down on the couch with one of the tablets, looking around the command list and a few files containing documents Tony had been filing online on his private server. Thor served me some chocolate cake and a cup of steaming coffee and I went to work.

* * *

It was already starting to get dark when I decided to take a break. I had already thrown everything that I thought would not be of use in one of Tony's virtual bins (I was just starting to learn how to literally throw floating pixels into other floating pixels), and was left with well, a lot.

Barton and Natasha had retreated to their bedrooms (yes, plural, they had decided that whatever happened on our movie night should not be repeated and left it at that), Bruce was toying around in Tony's workshop, probably not someone who slept a lot and Thor had driven to Jane's a few hours ago.

Since everyone was gone, and I had expected to be alone, I startled when I heard a voice right behind me and turned around to wrap my hands around the insulters throat in reflex. What I saw was the face of no one other than Loki, and for a moment I was only seeing red. He had to be the cause of Tony's disappearance, and yet he had the guts to show up at the Avenger's tower like it was his right.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." He said in a sing-song tone, mocking smile spread across his face.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't decapitate you right now." I spat, hands tightening around his throat threateningly.

"I have Tony." He shrugged, and I stared at him for a moment, frustrated beyond words that sentiment was indeed a chemical defect found on the losing side[1], in this case. I then let go, allowing the God to straighten out his clothes before flopping down next to me on the couch. "Oh, and I've still got the gauntlet of infinity, that makes every argument you have invalid." Loki grinned, and I wanted to wipe that smile of his face so badly, but he had Tony, so I couldn't.

"What have you come for, Loki? Have you come to tease us? To tell us that we'll never find him? Because you're wrong, we will find Tony and free him from your grasp." I said warningly, although I realized that I really wasn't in a position to threaten Loki with anything while that gauntlet was still pointed at my face.

"No.. I have come to make a deal. I will give you a hint on how to find Tony, and you will hand in your shield." And this was so incredibly difficult, because I didn't want to make the same mistake as Tony made. I didn't want to be one of those people who don't think things through and I wanted to ask help from my team-members. But when I thought about Tony somewhere, trapped, all human and defenseless, I felt like there wasn't any option for me but to agree.

It was only later, hours after the God had left with my shield that I realized that this must have been the exact same position Tony had been in, too. He had probably been told by Loki that I would get hurt if he didn't accept Loki's deal, and then he'd had to make sure that we wouldn't get in his way. All that just so he could save me and I suddenly saw the games Loki was playing.

And I felt so stupid because I had allowed myself to be part of his games. The only thing Loki had to do was threaten one of us with the possible pain of the other, and he could get anything he wanted from us, without even using the stupid glove _or_ the tessaract.

I couldn't believe I had fallen for his schemes, and I didn't know how to play this, either. Because as long as Loki had Tony, he could make all the deals he wanted, and as long as he had the glove, he could get anything from Tony he wanted, too.

What I was mostly curious about was why he didn't just get it over with and kill us. And then something occurred to me. The last thing Loki needed to concur the Earth (beside his gauntlet, his magic, and his army), was something that Tony and I _knew._ Something planted inside our heads and that was why he couldn't just kill us. He would have to break us apart piece by piece, but now that I knew that he wasn't going to kill us anyhow, I at least knew that this was a game I could play if I wanted to.

And that gave me hope that maybe, just maybe we had a chance of winning against him.

_[1]quote from Sherlock BBC_

**[A/N I hope this made sense? I mean if it doesn't, just tell me.]**


	19. Chapter 19

**[A/N uh..]**

Part 19.

"He left.. with your shield?" Natasha shouted, her face twisted with anger. "You let him take your shield? Steve Rogers, that is the stupidest thing anyone has done for quite a while. And that includes Tony getting himself kidnapped twice in 2 years."

"Tony was in danger." I mumbled, hanging my head in shame.

"Steve you do see what he is doing here, right? He is using you two as his own personal puppets. You shouldn't have fell for it!"

"And what, let him hurt Tony in return?"

"Do you really think that making this stupid deal with him will keep him from hurting Tony? Who knows what he is doing with Tony, this is not helping!"

Fury came in then, dropping a stack of papers on the table. We were in one of the conference rooms again, and Natasha and I had been shouting to and fro for quite some time.

"Will you two shut up and work like a team, instead of against each other?" Fury bellowed, staring us down and even Natasha was making big puppy dog eyes because he was so intimidating. "He might not be helping, Romanov, but at least he's trying. You are just scolding others because they're useless, while you yourself are doing nothing." That was quite harsh, because it was Natasha who had managed to get into JARVIS' system, but I think Tony's absence and our lack of control on the situation was starting to nag at him, too. "Thor," he turned to the brother of the adopted demi-God. "I think we have determined that Loki has indeed kidnapped Tony Stark and possesses the weapons he needs in order to take over the Earth. What is his strategy?"

"Judging from what we've heard and encountered, he is trying to weaken our team through black mail, so that by the time he needs something from us, he can take it without risking us fighting him." Thor said, for the first time in weeks looking serious, and actually proving that he wasn't just a heap of brainless muscle.

"Why doesn't he use this infinity gauntlet for it?" Fury asked.

"I have a theory about that." I jumped in, "I think there is something that we _know _and not something that we _have_. That means that he can't just kill us, he will have to get it out of us. With our weapons still with us, it will be too hard for him to keep control over us. He could use the gauntlet, but i don't think he knows the full power of the glove just yet. It would mean risking our death, which would result into the loss of the information." Fury nodded,

"What hint were you given about Tony's whereabouts?" he asked me. I reached into my pocket to retrieve a piece op paper.

"I wrote down exactly what he said. I can't work out what it means." I handed him the paper, which read, 'Mad Star Me', three words awfully fitting to describe Loki. I had no idea what it meant, though.

"What if he's just tricking us? For all we know he could be giving us fake hints." Natasha commented, looking at the scrap of paper sceptically.

"No," Thor supplied, "he is playing a game with us. While he tries to slowly break us apart, we have to try to find Tony before he succeeds. He gives us hints in return for our weaponry. Soon enough, he'll have me hand in my hammer, Clint will be an archer without a bow and God knows what he'll do to Bruce and Natasha."

"This," Fury gestured around, meaning he meant this whole situation, "is just a game?" he growled.

"Well , I suppose that if you are a God and rightful heir of the throne of two planets, games are played on a larger scale." I mumbled, allowing my head to fall onto my arms.

* * *

I was so tired. Not physically, because there isn't much that could tire my body, but I was emotionally drained. I was missing Tony so badly, and after hearing what Natasha had said, I was mighty afraid of what could be happening to Tony. I was so worried, that I couldn't keep my shoulders upright, as if a permanent weight made out of worry was keeping them down.

If I was feeling like this, I couldn't imagine how Pepper must be feeling. Fighting in the Avengers together, saving each other's lives and the relationship Tony and I had been forming had of course created a bond between us. But Pepper had stood by his side for years, and I wasn't going to pretend that what I had with Tony was more than Pepper had with Tony. What if nobody had told her what was going on? Why would anyone have thought of her? With new motivation and purpose, I reached for my Stark cell phone, dialling Pepper.

"Pepper, here." She said, sounding quite cheerful and I hated to be the one to break that peaceful state of mind. I almost chickened out because I didn't want her to feel bad. But she would probably be feeling way worse finding out later, anyhow.

"Hey Pepper, Steve here." I said uncertainly, wondering if she even considered me a friend or not.

"Steve!" Her voice softened, "Everything alright?" She sounded so caring, and I already felt guilty.

"No." I said, and paused for a while, feeling the tears prickling in my eyes, "Something has happened to Tony." I said, and the reality hit me so suddenly and with such force that I couldn't hold back the partly choked sob that welled up.

"I'll be on my way." She mumbled, and hung up.

The whole time that Pepper wasn't there yet, I spent sitting on my bed and trying not to pull my hair out. I was shaking by the time she walked into my room, and she threw off her heels as she sat beside me.

"These God-damn –" She clasped her hand around her mouth when she saw me glaring at her for scolding with God, "sorry, these damned things hurt like Hell." She turned to face me and took in my red, tired eyes, my hunched shoulders and my clenched fists. "OK, you need to calm down. It's OK to cry." She added, taking my hands and pulling me from my bed with a surprising amount of force. "Come on, hot choco, ice-cream and bad romance movies. Chop chop." She said when I just looked at her incredulously.

"You think that'll help?" I asked uncertainly.

"I'm sure it will. What about sobbing over the Titanic? That way you can pretend you aren't crying over Tony's kidnapping, and merely very into the movie." She winked, and I couldn't help but give her a little smile in return as she pulled me towards the kitchen to fetch us our ice-cream and hot choco. I was temporarily confused why she knew about Tony's kidnapping, before deciding that indeed, Natasha, Bruce, Thor and Clint (who wasn't 'Barton' anymore, because I had decided he was pretty awesome even with his sometimes bad manners) had saved me from the horror of explaining everything again.

It was nice that they'd thought about my feelings, that they had considered me too and that they felt like I was a part of their group. And then there was Pepper, who was trying her hardest to help me, and there shouldn't have been a better feeling than having the feeling of being cared about by these people, except that I knew there was.

Because they cared for a lot of people, and it was regular for them. Tony Stark, however, wasn't as easy with caring for people. And yet, he had chosen to care for me. And I missed that feeling so much, that despite all the people trying to make me feel better, I still felt so incredibly alone.

Suddenly, coming out of an ice-berg with everyone you knew being death wasn't considered lonely anymore after experiencing this feeling of sorrow and loss, and I felt so, utterly, incredibly pathetic.

**[A/N awe… the feels!]**


	20. Chapter 20

**[A/N Late late late… I'm aware! So busy, though!]**

Part 20

It wasn't long before we got Loki's second hint. He didn't ask anything in return, which made us worry whether just maybe, he had already taken something without our permission. Thor was very angry that he had managed to get into our home without leaving a trace or without waking anyone of us up. Not even JARVIS, who Natasha had managed to get on our side and working, hadn't stopped him. There wasn't even a trace of him on the security tapes. That damned wizard and his tricks.

The only thing that suggested that Loki had been here was a note, with a few lines of poetry. Another tip that was supposed to lead us to Tony. It couldn't have been anyone's sick idea of a joke, either, because it was our favourite prankster who was still in the hands of the Asgardian psychopath.

"Alright, read it out, pretty boy." Clint handed me the note, and I raised my eyebrow. "What?" He held his hands up, "You look like you are one to enjoy a good piece of poetry." I rolled my eyes at him, but took the piece of paper anyway and coughed before reading it out in my best impersonation of Shakespeare.

"I enjoy the freedom of this city,

However, there are girls who need my pity

Curtains of red, they hide behind,

The men lusting after them, so unkind."

I looked at everyone in confusion, and my eyebrows positively reached my hairline when everybody's faces showed understanding.

"Is there something I'm missing?" I asked, and Clint clapped me on my shoulder.

"There are 70 years you have been missing, Cap." He said, snatching the note back again and reading over the text. "Yup, prostitution. Definitely. Red neighbourhoods is what they call them, the districts where girls offer their body in return for money. There are few places where it is actually illegal." He explained. I wondered incredulously why they would do that, not understanding how women would voluntarily sleep with men they'd never met. "Suggestions on places, anyone?"

"Prostitution is legal almost everywhere, the list is way too long, and we don't have anything to narrow it down with." Natasha sighed.

"That's not true." I said, fetching the other note from my pocket. "We still have the other hint!" I said enthusiastically, pressing both the notes onto the table with my finger.

"Yes, if we can figure out what it means." Clint mumbled, comparing the two notes and looking for a connection. "Mad Star Me… Maybe something about Las Vegas?"

"No, too general. Prostitution and crazy artists can be found anywhere. He is trying to describe a city, here. He is going for specifics, not for just anything." Bruce said, and we were probably looking like idiots, all staring at the two slightly crumbled notes on the table. "Natasha, you have travelled a lot, anything coming to mind?" She shook her head.

We gave up after a while, nobody coming up with anything, and we had decided to wait for another hint before continuing our research. It was nagging at all our minds, though, and everybody was slightly on edge. And the fact that Loki had given a tip without taking anything in return, still worried me. And it didn't occur to me that maybe he had messed with something, before it was too late.

Clint was down in Tony's workshop, bow strained and muscles tight with the back of the arrow held neatly between his fingers. I was watching him trying out one of the prototype bows Tony had been working with, as well as a couple of new kinds of arrows. He was playing around a bit, straining and unstraining the bow to test how much exertion the action took, and seeing how flexible the string was. It had struck me as weird before, that there were two arrows of every kind but one.

2 sharpies, 2 which would explode upon contact, 2 which could take back biological samples, and then there was one extra. One without a partner, one lone arrow with a beautiful green bud at the end. If I had looked closer I would have seen the L engraved in it, but it hadn't occurred to me to check. Of course it hadn't, there was no reason for me to distrust weaponry that Tony had crafted. Tony was the most skilful crafter out there and it was insane to even doubt whether the new equipment was safe to use or not.

But when Clint took the arrow, placing it in the beautiful and stylish bow and pulling his arm back, ready to fire, suspicion arose. It was too late though when Clint released the arrow with a playful glint in his eyes, aiming for the dummy's eye and not missing by an inch. I did jump in time, pushing Clint and myself out of the way from the explosion that was way too big even for one of Tony's arrows. Even in Tony's most creative or lunatic moods he wouldn't have created an arrow that would have blown up half of his own house _without warning_. Because nowhere in Tony's notes was written anything about an arrow with a green bud that would cause half a building to collapse.

"Barton!" I shouted, my body making impact with his and shoving him as far away from the rapidly increasing amounts of flying rubble. I did land on top of him, probably causing a lot of bruises in the progress, but avoiding the risk of larger injuries. I covered his body with mine, waiting for everything to settle. Upstairs, I could hear Bruce transforming and ripping clothes, I heard Natasha shrieking and the thumping of Thor dealing blows to the green monster.

All that was on my mind was trying to protect Clint who might have been a great bowman capable of self-defence, but whose body wasn't resistant to gigantic heaps of brick falling upon him. It hurt, laying there and having to take the blow myself, but I at least knew it would heal quickly in my case.

"Thanks." Clint said when he had his breath back after recovering from the impact the fall must have had on his lungs.

"No problem. Come on, got to move." I said, pulling him up by his arm and using an abandoned Captain America shield prototype to protect us from the most dangerous pieces of roof falling down. I walked us up the stairs, onto ground level, hoping that we would be safe once outside. However, it seemed that that one arrow had set off multiple bombs throughout the tower and that it was slowly collapsing. Sirens were already howling outside, but there wasn't much that could be done by the police, seeing as in the middle of the chaos, Thor was still trying to distract Hulk.

"Go outside, warn Fury that Hulk is one the loose. I'm going to find Natasha and bring her to safety." When Clint started to protest, probably not happy that he didn't get to be the hero, I interrupted him "There is nothing you can do. Let me handle this." He considered it for a moment, then nodded, deciding that maybe his pride wasn't the biggest thing at stake here. I ran upstairs, hoping against all odds that the floors above wouldn't collapse upon me.

"Natasha!" I shouted, running in the direction of Hulk's roars. She met me mid-way, throwing her arms around my waist in a quick hug, which I was barely able to return in my surprise. "Thank God you're OK. Clint is outside, go on, chop chop." I ushered her out and she left with a nod in thanks. I found Thor and Hulk in a heated battle.

"Banner, come back to us! There is no danger, we are your friends." Thor said while dodging a crazy amount of attacks.

"That doesn't work!" I shouted, turning the attention from both Hulk and Thor to me. "I will distract him, you try to lay your hammer on him so he can't move. Deal?" Thor gave his OK, and I threw a piece of rubble towards Hulk to get his attention again. The green monster, which seemed to have little of Bruce left in him, turned to face me, a scowl on his deformed face, and I wondered for a second why I had volunteered for this. His arm pulled back, coming back with a force that almost knocked me out, missing by an inch and getting stuck in the wall. It took him a mere second to be able to pull his hand out and break half of the wall. Luckily enough, getting his hand stuck was enough distraction for Thor to get him on his back and place his hammer right in the middle of his stomach. Thor let out a roar in delight, pulling me up from my sitting position by my hand.

"Alright, Captain, hold on tight, we are going to jump off." He said, pulling me to the edge of the half-destroyed balcony.

"But you don't have your hammer." I pointed at the frustrated Hulk which was tugging at the hammer with no result, "How are we going to fly?"

"We aren't" Thor smiled, opening his arms for me to step in. I looked at him in surprise, knowing immediately what he meant to do, but wondering if he really was up for it.

"You sure?" I raised my eyebrow, and he smiled confidentially at me, apparently still happy despite just offering to be crushed to near-death.

"Yes, brother, now hurry up before this thing collapses on us." I looked over my shoulder, looking at the helpless Hulk laying there. There was no way for us to battle or distract him for any longer, and I knew the only sensible thing was to leave him there, but I didn't know whether Bruce would survive this.

"He will be alright." I said firmly, getting as comfortable as possible while squishing myself against Thor's armour. Thor let himself fall backwards then, and I closed my eyes when I felt the air around us, the sensation of free-falling creeping in my stomach. The impact we made with the ground was incredible. Thor took most of it, but I still felt my body complain. I scrambled off of him as quickly as I could, immediately crawling around him on my knees to inspect the damage. I breathed out in relieve when Thor gave me a tiny smile and a thumbs up, and allowed myself to fall backwards onto the pavement, sirens blaring all around me.

The next moments were all a blur.

Fury arrived, sending his medical team to take care of Thor, who seemed to be OK despite just having dropped himself off of the 5th floor of a building. I allowed myself to lay on the ground, refusing to accept any offer anyone was giving me to help me up, just letting myself calm down and letting my body recover from the extreme amount of pressure it was under.

I watched Tony's (ugly, gigantic) tower slowly collapse, looking like a modern version of the twin tower's disaster, knowing that Hulk, or Bruce, was slowly falling, the weight of the hammer preventing him from going anywhere and the problem was that I knew exactly how helpless he was feeling. Flash-backs of my own down-under fresh in my mind and all, I watched how he slowly got buried alive, hoping that the other guy wouldn't allow him to die.

**[A/N Ohh, they had no choice! Don't kill me! Or them!]**


	21. Chapter 21

**[A/N Uh.]**

Part 21.

It turned out that I had blacked out at some time. I shouldn't have refused medical care, Fury told me the moment I came by in a (unmoving) car. I was planning on disagreeing, but when I tried to sit up and felt sore spots on my- well _everywhere_, I decided that maybe a bit of medical care would have come in handy, even with my serum-healing. I did manage to sit up entirely, a couple of pillows having been shoved behind my back by an assistant. Fury offered a bottle of water, which I gladly took and drained in a go.

"How long have I been out?" I asked, placing the glass on my nightstand and wiggling my legs experimentally, testing how sore they were. It turned out that I was healing quickly, because I could already wiggle my toes which I had been unable to do just minutes before.

"Not long. 10 minutes at most, we are still at the crime scene." I raised my eyebrows, ignoring my headache to be able to emphasize my point.

"So crime scene, that's what it is now?" I mumbled. "This isn't CSI, Fury," I had a moment of internal pride that I had managed to come up with a modern times reference, "This is war Fury, just like last time. Just because there are less parties involved doesn't mean you ought to treat it differently. There might be just one man's life at stake, but this man does represent 1/6 of humanity." I said warningly, finally being able to stand on my own feet without losing my balance or hurting myself in a too obnoxious way. Fury considered me for a moment, eye following my movements in an unsettling way.

"There hasn't been a sign of Banner yet. We are still busy looking."

"I want to help."

"Rogers, look at yourself. Do you really think that there is any way in which you can be helpful?" Fury asked sceptically. "You don't even have your shield." He spat, still angry about that or so it seemed.

"I think you are underestimating me, _sir._" I said, "I think you forgot the importance of the Avengers. Every Avenger. We can't work while one of us is missing, we have a dynamic that is irreplaceable, strong, that can only be produced by these exact 6 people. When Loki defeats us, is done toying with us, he has all the freedom he wants to play with his gauntlet of infinity. And you know that you damn well need us to protect the Earth, so maybe you can come off your high horse and actually start helping with looking for Tony, or at least stop pretending to be doing so." I hoped out of the car, startled by the bright sunlight, quickly making an escape before seeing Fury's reaction. I wasn't sure I wanted to, really.

I was still wearing one of Tony's shirts, which I had slept in and which was way too small for me. There was a ton of skin exposed and I probably looked like a kid that would just not let go of their favourite PJ's. My jeans were ripped at all sides and it wasn't an outfit particularly suitable for rescue-working, but I didn't let that stop me from striding over to start throwing around pieces of what used to be a tower. Thor arrived too, armour back on and a big smile on his face. His smile didn't seem as relaxed as it normally did, and even though there seemed to be a permanent orbit of peace and relaxation around him, the worry for Bruce was evident on his face.

"Thor, can't you feel where Mjolnir is?" I asked, throwing what seemed to be a piece of my own bed away and onto the truck where the real rescue-workers were dragging the breakstone onto.

"I'm afraid I can only pull Mjolnir towards me, which wouldn't result into finding Bruce." I looked at him incredulously.

"Are you kidding me?" I dropped my piece of wall onto the ground. "Thor, I'm absolutely sorry to say this, but you are a class one idiot." I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him around for a bit. "If Mjolnir flies towards you, it would destroy everything it breaks through to get to you, wouldn't it?" Thor nodded, mouth hanging open sheepishly and I almost expected drool to come out of it, "That means the hole your hammer leaves in its wake will lead us directly to Bruce!" I smiled, and Thor gave me a big grin in return.

"Brilliant, brother!" I let him go instantly when he held his hand up to summon the Asgardian weapon, and everybody turned in the direction of the racket the hammer was making breaking through layers and layers of collapsed floors until finally landing in Thor's strong grip. I immediately ran towards where the hammer had surfaced, followed closely by Thor. He told me to move back, and when I did, he used his crazy-ass God-strength to move remove layers and layers of rumble, exposing a dark curled head which could belong to Bruce.

I started moving planks around more carefully now, together with Thor, and managed to drag a fully naked Bruce out. Thor threw the naked professor over his shoulder with no shame, walking in a pace that even I couldn't match up to without a bit of jogging, to dump him onto a stretcher unceremoniously. The medics were a bit shocked to see that we had done what the other people should have been doing in last 20 minutes or so, in under a minute, but did cover up Bruce to preserve some of his dignity, and they went to work on him.

"Was he breathing?" I asked Thor in panic, because the ambulance had driven off, presumably to the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters because whatever Fury might be saying, he didn't trust Bruce to be anywhere else, even in his unconscious and battered form.

"Yes he was, be calm, brother. The big green guy would have never allowed him to die." Thor smiled at me, clapping me on the shoulder, and I sighed in relieve, glad that we had all come out of this relatively scar-less.

* * *

Both Bruce and Natasha were back from the hospital the next day (Natasha was extremely pissed that Fury had made her go there in the first place) just in time to read the next note that Loki had left behind. We were all sitting around the kitchen table (Still on the chairs that Thor had appointed us months ago, because we had all grown attached to our own chair in a scary way), Natasha with a sour face and Bruce with an ice-pack against his head. Thor was looking at the rolled up piece of paper eagerly and Clint was eyeing Natasha in a worried way. I had called Pepper, too, got her up to date on everything and she was sitting on Tony's chair, not quite able to fill the empty space Tony had left behind but doing a decent job at filling in for him. Clint looked at me pointedly, cocking his head towards the note and I rolled my eyes, removing the green silk ribbon from around it.

"The city that God despises." I read out. I raised an eyebrow, getting quite agitated. "Loki doesn't know what he's talking about, God is incapable of hate." I said stubbornly, throwing the note back onto the table. Natasha rolled her eyes at me, snatching the note from t table to stare at it for a while.

"I know what this is. The city that God hates, that is Amsterdam. I am a hundred percent sure, it's one of the nicknames for the capital of the Netherlands."

"What, he has him in Europe now? Are you sure? I mean, this could be any city he's talking about."

"This is a specific nickname for the city, Steve." Natasha rolled her eyes again. "Besides, the first hint said Mad Star Me, which is an anagram of Amsterdam, see?" She said smugly, laying the three hints out on the table. "Amsterdam is famous for its Freedom, The open homosexuality, The drugs and most importantly, prostitution."

"You are right." Pepper breathed, looking at the hints. "He is keeping Tony there for the irony, I'm sure. The city practically screams Tony." Pepper looked up at me and shrugged, "Or well, what Tony used to be before he got smitten by our Captain." I smiled slightly, happy that we had found out where Tony was being kept, but not knowing what would happen now.

"This hint was too obvious." Clint murmured, scanning the scraps of paper, "I think he got tired of waiting. I think he finally has the gauntlet under his control entirely, and that he is looking for the confrontation." Clint said, and we looked at him in alarm because what he was saying was making way too much sense.

"He was just keeping us distracted by creating a puzzle, while practicing with his glove!" Bruce mumbled.

"If he has the gauntlet under control, there is no way for us to survive this" I moaned, rubbing my face and way, way too tired of these games. "There is no one that can help us against a gauntlet of God-damned infinity." Thor shook his head.

"There is one person," He said mysteriously, "who is dying to get his dear glove back." He looked around the group, eyes narrowing, "Thanos." And the name carried such a weight, that the silence it left behind was ear-shattering.

**[A/N wooh! Almost there, ALMOST THERE. Bear with me, guys, there's cool stuff on the way. And a planned sequel! Yay, right?:)]**


	22. Chapter 22

**[A/N**

**To anon 'Daisukino': **

**I'm happy to hear about your interesting uhm.. fetish? :P Thank you very much for your review. And yes, I ADORE Benedict Cumberbatch. Ever since I became obsessed with Sherlock, I have been doing little else than drooling over him.]**

Part 22.

There was a lot to get used to, now that the tower was destructed. At first, I was afraid that we would split up, but it seemed that none of us really considered that the right option. Luckily for us, Tony had more than a few billions on his bank account that we would gladly spend for him. We had sent Natasha house hunting using the argument that she was a woman, and that she was good with houses and stuff. She had shot back that gays were supposedly just as good, and that's when Clint decided he'd had enough and shouted at us to stop stereo-typing, or he was going to put Natasha in the kitchen to make him a sandwich, and have me wear pink boa's.

Anyhow, the real problem was that the house we had in the end decided on buying had only 3 bathrooms. Which would have been enough, had we not been 5 completely different adults which all seemed to have a bad case of ADD.

"It's all Natasha's fault, she was in charge of buying a house." I complained when I was squished between Thor and Bruce while brushing my teeth. Both Natasha and Clint were having a shower, separately, so we had to brush our teeth with the three of us squished into a little cubicle. Bruce's arm hair was heavily irritating me while it scratched against my arm, and of course Thor was enriching his speech with large gestures and he almost knocked me out twice.

"We should have accompanied her! Such a task is not to be given to a woman." Thor said, arm waving theatrically, and I thought I almost lost my head, being able to duck just in time and in return getting pressed into Bruce. Which normally, wouldn't be a problem. But one, I wasn't wearing a shirt and two, I had seen Bruce naked on too many after-Hulking occasions that being this close to him _shirtless _could just not be _not _awkward.

So when everyone had finally brushed their teeth, showered and somewhat dressed themselves up for the night, it turned out that the walls and floors of the house were just a little too thin. Just thin enough for me to hear Thor's phone call with Jane in the other room, or Bruce's exited voice as he skyped with his new flame, Jenna. Or Natasha and Clint who were pretending to be scolding each other while really, every word that fell from their lips indirectly said I love you.

And back was the loneliness, and I would be willing to give anything in the world to have my sarcastic, addicted, self-destructing, smart-ass genius back.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up to find myself completely disorientated because of waking up somewhere that was no Tony's bed. It turned out that I was late again as I could already smell coffee and fresh bread.

The bathroom was, thankfully, not overly crowded, but I did almost slip over Natasha's spilled make-up remover and Thor's gigantic bar of soap he left lying around on the bathroom floor. So after making myself look semi-presentable, I went on my search for breakfast. Just follow the delicious bread smell!

When I finally found everybody in the kitchen, Thor had just started explaning the new seating-arrangements to the rest. They were looking very serious, though, so I wondered what was up.

"Since when is choosing a chair such serious busniess? I asked Natasha, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"No touching!" She hissed, shrugging my arm off. "Don't get too cocky now, eh?" She said warningly, for now semi-carefully removing my arm from her shoulders, and I didn't want to know what would have happened to it had chosen to leave it thre. There is only so much super-serum can do..

"You hugged me!" I exclaimed, pointing at her while recalling the interesting moment she had run up to me and hugged me.

"We were almost dying!" she shot back.

"Still, you did hug me!"

"OH, shut up, Cap." She waved her hand, dismissing the subject while I was not even half-way through teasing her!

* * *

"Thanos." Thor said later, when we were all sitting around the table, munching on our food. He was wiggling his eyebrows in such an exciting manner, that for a moment I thought they'd come off. Thor had mentioned this guy before. Once when explaning that that is whom Odinson got the gauntlet from ages ago and he mentioned them last time when we figured out Tony's location.

"Thanos?" we asked Thor in semi-unison after recovering from the anti-climactic declaration. Thor nodded excitedly, looking at us as if he expected us to know what kind of genius plan he had just come up with.

"Well?" Natasha asked impatiently, moving her hand in a circle to get him to explain everything.

"Wait," Thor raised his eyebrows, "You don't know who Thanos is? From the moon Titan? Avatar of Death? No?" Thor was starting to sound desperate when we all continued looking at him like he had just thrown his armour out of the window. He smiled at us. "I sometimes forget how little you know of the world in which you live." So basically, he ended up making us all feel like little ants that could be stepped upon at any moment, as Loki had once nicely put it.

It was at least 100 eye-rolls, an irritated Bruce, a dozen-or-so face palms and tens of head-desks later that Thor had finally explained everything.

"OK, so basically," Clint began, trying to sum it all up before he was rudely cut off by Thor who seemed to have learned exactly zero Earthly manners since he had begun living here.

"There is no 'basically' in this case, brother." He laughed, "This guy, this Thanos, he has the ability to end all life as you and I know it. To give him back his gauntlet would be to continue a centuries old power-play between moons and planets. It is insanity!"

"We could make a deal." Clint shrugged.

"I think there have been made too many dirty deals already." I spat, "Who says he will keep his word?"

"We will have to trust him." Clint answered uncertainly, "I mean we need to get Tony back and stop Loki before he has dealt too much damage and before he has enough control over that gauntlet to take over the Earth." Thor laughed again, and it seemed like every time Thor laughed, one of us ended up feeling stupid.

"You are thinking about Earth now? The small planet Midgard is of great importance to me too. But not important enough to risk the destruction of Asgard and other planets that Thanos could interpret as an enemy, just to save its population from oppression. We aren't thinking globally anymore, we are thinking universally."

"Oh- Oh so, so now you are offering up the entire race 'human' to, to that maniac?" Bruce spluttered angrily. "You have got to help us speak to him, Thor!" This made Thor think for a long while, probably wondering how bad Earth would be treated in the hands of his brother (or better said, how Jane would be treated in the hands of his brother).

"There isn't anything I can do, anyway. We need a powerful energy source and a portal to be able to travel to Titan. Preferably the tessarect, or the portal Heimdall used to patrol. We don't have either." Thor said, voice surprisingly soft compared to usually and shoulders hunched. "_So basically,_" He mimicked Clint perfectly,

"This planet is doomed."

**[A/N meh]**


	23. Chapter 23

**[A/N Sorry for the slower updates. School and writing is hard to combine sometimes, especially if eggs and blood join the chaos. According to some, the last chapter lacked action. I apologize if last chapter did not make sense, or if it was boring, I was just trying to make things a little… less serious. Alright, on with the next:]**

Part 23.

"There has to be a way." Natasha mumbled, impatiently drumming her fingers on the table. She had been for a while, now, and it was driving me insane. We were the only two in the house; Clint, Bruce and Thor were at S.H.I.E.L.D. to ask for Fury's help. Natasha and I thought seeking Fury's assistance would be useless, because there is only so much Fury can do, and we thought we could better spend the time brainstorming. I grabbed her hand and stilled her movements, and she looked up at me. She snatched her hand away.

"Hey, Nat, come on. We will figure out a way, I promise." I said, gripping her hand back in mine and pulling her up into a hug. "I promise." I repeated, trying to convince both her and myself.

"Oh!" She jumped but accepted my embrace, waving her hands a bit spastically before returning it. We stood there for a while, getting used to the feeling of having family to share the pain with. It wasn't long before Natasha decided she'd had enough of these sentimental shenanigans. "Alright, Steve, I get that this is necessary if we want to keep up this bonding and family stuff, but let's not over-do it." She murmured, trying to break free.

"Nat! It's only been 5 minutes, according to about every modern soap-series I've seen, a we-are-mourning-best-friends embrace should last at least 20!" She gave me an eye-roll, only barely able to contain a smile.

"He's not dead, remember?" she smirked playfully at me. Right, Tony wasn't dead, I knew that. But it had been so long since I had heard of him, talked to him, felt him. It just felt as if he had vanished, and although Natasha had meant to be playful, her words certainly had impact. I let her go, rubbing my face with my hand and her face was starting to show disbelief, playful smile abruptly replaced by raised eyebrows and scowl. "Steve Rogers, you do know we are going to save Tony, right?" I nodded, starting to collect some dishes and coffee cups that were scattered around the living room and trying to avoid looking at her by all means necessary. She stopped me by pinching my shoulder in a hard and painful way that only Natasha could manage on someone filled with strengthening serum.

"Ow!" I shouted, knocking her arm away and she looked at me in horror.

"Steve! What are you being all ass-holey for all of a sudden? Jesus, I was just trying to help." She mumbled, nervously rubbing the arm I had just slapped away. "Men.." she added when I looked at her incredulously.

"You pinched me!"

"Because I wanted your attention." I made a 'so' movement. "Oh, don't tell me it _hurt_." She scoffed, slapping my other shoulder too for good measure. I made a face.

"I know he's not dead." I continued our earlier conversation, "I just don't know how we are going to get him back. Like, ever."

"You are losing hope." She concluded, watching me closely. "We can't have that. You know Tony wouldn't want us t-" She fell quiet mid-sentence and I waited for her to finish impatiently. "We have completely ignored Tony's message ever since Loki came to play games. He was just distracting us from the important part, buying himself time. Tony wanted something from us, and we ignored it."

"I thought you said there was nothing more to find in that damned technological wonder of a portable suit."

"Nooo," She dragged out the word, looking away in a sort of sheepish way, "We kind of gave up looking when Loki started dropping hints."

"OK… So what now?"

'What now' turned out to be the wrong question, because Natasha's enthusiastic moods might be a seldom occurrence, but when she decided it was time for one, it pretty much always got out of hand. She was determined to find out what Tony had been trying to say, because she was convinced that Tony had not left a gap in 'his precious Javissy' as she'd said. She also said that Tony had probably made some sort of sentimental kind of code that had something to do with our ever-lasting love, despite my protests.

"Natashaa!" I whined, "I know nothing about technology!"

"No matter!" She tapped around on his floating tablets, moving around digits and documents like it was no big deal, while my head was spinning with all the numbers she was throwing around. "You just need to put in the password. I'm sure he told you the password sometime!" she smiled, hands moving rapidly over the screens.

"He didn't." I sighed, sitting down on Tony's desk and picking up a few sketches to play with them absent-mindedly. "Hey!" I said, holding them up in the light, "I drew those, of Tony." I smiled, playing with the edges of the paper and looking at my own drawings of Tony. Of course, my sketches could never come close to Tony's real beauty, but I had tried. Thrown them in the trash can when I got frustrated, and here they were, on Tony's desk.

"Yeah, nice." Natasha waved her hand at me. "Password?" she asked when at last, she managed to open the all too familiar in-log screen of Tony, where we had seen him fill in his code countless of times.

"I told you, I don't know." I shrugged, still intrigued by the fact that Tony had kept crumbled drawings of himself, drawn by me of all people. Natasha snatched them away, throwing them behind her on a different desk.

"Passwooohoord."

"Okay, fine!" I sighed, adding a dramatic eye-roll for fun. I sat down in front of the screen, feeling odd for sitting in Tony's favourite desk chair. I wiggled my fingers, looking up at Natasha with a frown, then back at the screen with the empty password box waiting for me. "Tash, I just- How can I know what to type?"

"Well, I don't know, you are supposed to know Tony like no one else. Oh, and you are hella sappy let me tell you." I nodded, quite agreeing. Okay, then. My fingers hovered over the keys, and then finally I typed, 'Steve'. The system beeped loudly in protest, and Natasha crossed her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow and hopping around on her feet. '2 more attempts' was displayed on the screen that I currently wanted to throw out of the window more than anything.

Think, Steve, think. Something he said, something important. The problem was that Tony mostly said stupid things, and did great things. It could be anything from 'captain', to 'love you', and in the worst case 'science forever'. He had never said something specific that sprung out, except for that one magical moment when he said 'I love you'. I bumped my head onto the table before it was too late, accidentally pressing a shitload of keys with my forehead, hearing the blaring from the system when the code was once again, surprise surprise, not correct!

"What did you do?" Natasha screeched, looking at the '1 attempt' warning in horror.

"I tried to type the password with my head, duh." I rolled my eyes, "I face-desked! I couldn't help it!"

"And you had to face-desk on the _keyboard_? I thought face _desking_ was for _desks!_"

"I get it! I shouldn't have, momma. You try and figure out a password you've never even heard of. Or hack your way through it for all I care." I scoffed, mimicking her bitchy stance.

"Drama queen." She muttered, picking up the keyboard and scanning the keys intently. "Looking for fingerprints." She clarified when she saw my frown. When she was satisfied with her findings, she smirked at me and typed in letters I could not make out from my lower position on the chair, and pressed enter. Miraculously, JARVIS welcomed us enthusiastically into the system.

"Welcome back, sir. Long time no see. I have stored the Titan plans on your private server, because you haven't touched it for a while. I was afraid it might end up in the wrong hands. Should I transfer it back to the Avenger-Family server, sir?" Of course Tony had called our united server the Avenger-family server. Typical.

"What was the password?" I asked, and Natasha gave me another evil smirk but didn't answer. "Wait, why didn't you do the finger print thing earlier?" She decided to ignore silly, naïve me, and continued to look at the screens as if mesmerized by her own passcode cracking skills.

"The Titan plans, JARVIS? Open them up, please. I want all the documents open and a summary, if you will." Natasha was ordering him around as if she'd owned this system for ages.

"Yes, my lady. I hope you have not overridden my system, and that you are a friendly party." JARVIS answered, as if he really was a person and I thought back to the time when I thought JARVIS was Tony's friend. Things sure had changed.

"Unbelieveable." Natasha breathed when she had all the sketches, text, information, everything Tony had stored in the file in front of us. All the little planets, microbes and whatnot meant nothing to me, but apparently a lot to her. "He created a way to get to Titan. He invented a portal to Thanos' habitat. Oh my God. He's even more of a genius than I had expected."

"The prototype has been ready for a while, madam. The production time is about 24 hours, but hard to estimate at this point. Do you want to proceed?" Her immediate answer was yes, of course, and I sighed in relief. This meant that there was a way for us to seal the deal with Thanos, this meant we were almost there. Natasha concluded that there wasn't much we could do, just enlighten the rest of the team and wait for JARVIS to finish. I walked into my room to get ready for bed, Natasha would stay up and talk to the others when they arrived. She followed me to my room and waited in the doorway.

"The password was Steve The Virgin." She smirked before walking out and closing the door behind her.

**[A/N thank you all for the amazing reviews. I have read them all and have yet to reply to them. Not enough time ;_;]**


	24. Chapter 24

**[A/N I'm behind on everything, and I'm blaming my school for making me work outrageously much.]**

Part 24.

Bruce just couldn't believe it. Tony had been working on a portal not unlike Heimdall's without his science-buddy's approval. Frankly, I thought it was hilarious to see Bruce's jealous face for once, instead of the carefully placed mask he always seemed to be wearing.

"Bruce, chill out, pal. I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure, and you know Tony. He likes struggling on his own." He said, grabbing hold of Bruce's shoulder. "Snap out of it, we don't want a repetition of the events on flying ship, right?"

So after reassuring Bruce that Tony had just been as stressed and self-destructive as usual, and after finding a shitload of alcoholic drinks that I had apparently overlooked while ridding Tony's workshop of anything he might use to poison himself (And yes, it had to be poison, why else would the serum keep it from intoxicating my body, eh?), we were left with the huge question. What now.

In the end, after many, many protests from everyone, we decided Thor would have to go on his own. Natasha and Clint were out of the question. There was simply no way for them to travel all the way to Titan and then make deals with a very powerful guy that didn't even speak the same language as them. Thor was the only one with experience with outer space (unless you counted all the aliens we killed, or the few seconds Tony spent in space while saving the Earth).

It was really useless for me to go, because I would be no match against Thanos, especially, I thought bitterly, without my shield. Bruce would be quite useless unless he would be able to get very angry, very quickly. But we doubted we would leave a good impression if we sent a big green mutant of a guy, no offense to Bruce.

Thor, on the other hand, spoke all-speak, which meant he would be able to communicate with Thanos. He also had quite a lot of knowledge about the guy, and a lot of experience with people from other planets. He was our best guess, so when the portal was finally, finally done, we decided to let him have a go at it.

Thor stepped into the metal tube with a frown on his face.

"Is this supposed to make me travel around the galaxy?" He asked, punching the wall of metal, and I winced, hoping against all odds that he hadn't made a dent.

"Thor, Tony never leaves his work unfinished." Clint said, a sort of pride in his voice.

"Well, it's not like he left by choice." I mumbled. Everyone chose to ignore what I'd said because my permanently sullen mood was starting to piss them off.

"I will trust our loyal metal man." Thor nodded, bracing himself, armour in place and hammer firmly in his grasp. "I hope this is not farewell, my friends." He said dramatically, spreading his arms and clearly inviting us into a group hug which we had not anticipated. We looked at each other and in the end decided that yes, we needed a group hug, because we didn't know if we would be OK. If Tony and Thor would be OK. And this might be goodbye.

For all we knew it was goodbye, because the last thing we heard before we sent one of our best friends into space was the unmistakeable, loud and scream-like sound of the God of thunder in pain.

* * *

"What if he got hurt? What if he didn't survive?" I panicked, clutching my hair and pacing around the way-less-stylish-than-fashionable-and-gay-tony's living room.

"Steve,"

"What do we tell Jane? It was us who sent him into space without consideration!"

"Steve-"

"If he doesn't come back how do we save Tony?"

"Steve!" Natasha smacked me across my cheek, finally getting my attention and stopping my previously undisturbed pacing. I looked at her, eyes wide and mouth dry, "You are useless if you are a nervous, blabbering mess. Get yourself something to do at least. Train some fighting techniques with Clint, punch some punching bags into mush. I don't care, make yourself useful."

"It's Thor's life on the line here, Natasha, TONY'S LIFE!" I shouted, "Don't you care at all? Do you think punching a some bags will save them?"

"Steve," she sighed, probably already tired of having to say my name so many times, just like a kindergarten teacher with an annoying crying child, "stop saying things you don't mean. Knowing you, you are already regretting saying things like that."

"What if he doesn't come back." I said, feeling guilty that I wasn't exactly fearing Thor's life (he was a God, come on), but fearing that without his return, we would never be able to save Loki.

"He will." As if to emphasize what she was saying, there was a loud and thunderous sound coming from Tony's workshop. Natasha and I shared a quick glance, having a fierce battle of who-will-take-the-stairs-first, before deciding that I would just have to throw her over my shoulder and carry her downstairs. Clint and Bruce came running after us, Bruce almost falling over his own feet and Clint almost falling over Bruce.

"Did he come back?" Clint asked, leaning onto Bruce for support and massaging the sore knee he just got himself.

We looked at the mess before us. Scraps of what was left over of Tony's brilliant invention laying here-and-there, parts of software scattered around the room. A few desks had been knocked all the way into the walls of the spacious workshop, and shelves had been emptied onto the floor. Some things seemed to be electrocuted and little snaps of electricity could be heard now and then. It took some time for any of us to move, as we were all pretty flabbergasted, looking at what had become of the Genius his workplace, and I myself was wondering what Tony would do to us if he saw what we'd done to it.

In the middle of all the chaos was a figure suspiciously much like Thor's, and it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong somewhere. Not only was he back way too soon (no longer than 30 minutes had passed since his departure), but he was lying face-first on the ground and not moving, and the portal had been completely destroyed. His hammer was still clenched in his fist, lying by his side.

"Oh God." Natasha murmured, first to have some sense of thought back. She scurried over to Thor, and we silently followed, not knowing what to do. She bent her head, checking whether he was breathing. When the result disappointed her, she tried again. We held our breaths and groaned in unison when she looked up at us with big bambi eyes.

"Mouth-on-mouth?" Clint suggested lamely, and I didn't know if he was making a bad joke on the wrong moment, or whether he was being serious and shy about it. When Natasha kept looking at him, he held his hands up. "No- Natasha, this is your cue. Thor's a man. You are a woman."

"Steve is gay." She retorted, deadpan, as if Thor was not laying there motionless. I sighed and wondered whether any of our team-mates would ever grow up, and walked over to Thor.

"You do the CPR, I'll do the mouth-on-mouth. Because you are all such babies." I added quietly, bending my head to try and reanimate what was supposed to be an immortal creature, but right now looked like a poor excuse of a God.

"I can't do it!" Natasha panicked, trying to push down Thor's broad chest, but unable to due to her lack of strength and overflow of nerves.

"Natasha, look at me. Thor might die, or might survive, depending on the way you are able to control your nerves. Get your head back in there." She nodded, suddenly determined and back to the controlled Natasha we all knew, hands steady. She looked at me for a moment before pushing in the right rhythm together with my exhales into Thor's lungs.

"Come on, buddy.." Clint was chanting from the side. Minutes passed, and Natasha and I wouldn't give up. The disturbing sound of Thor's ribs cracking was echoing through the room, the rest of us so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. And then I was crying, while trying my best to keep him alive, to breathe life into him, and tears were rolling down Natasha's cheeks, mingling with the sweat the exercise was causing. And we knew it was too late, somewhere, that what we were doing was futile and that he had not breathed for too long.

We didn't want to believe it, we didn't want to let go of that one person who had a chance against Loki, that one person that kept the spirits high in the worst of times. That one person that presented 1/6 of humanity despite being from a different planet. The selfless God that was one of our best friends. And here he was laying, supposedly immortal but clearly lifeless in our grasp, and Bruce was putting a hand on my shoulder, and I tried to shrug him off but fatigue was rapidly taking over. The events of the last weeks getting too much to bear and I finally let go of Thor, my salty tears splashing on his face, and the ground, and then suddenly on Bruce's shoulder as the man tried to calm me despite his own obvious mourning.

And as if on cue, heavy rain started, thunder echoing around us with deafening purpose.

**[A/N I'm so sorry for the slower update. School is almost finished, and finals are killing me and my free time. R.I.P. fun times and Sherlock marathons. Oh wells.]**


	25. Chapter 25

**[A/N sad shit going on here. It's 4am, and I just felt the need to write it all out, before I had a nervous break-down. Oh btw, anyone know what the difference between 'comment' and 'review' is? o.o]**

_-Major plothole alert. Tony's workshop had been destroyed together with the tower. Guess where they were last chapter? That's right, the workshop. Apologies, folks. I will try to correct this mistake-_

Part 25.

He was supposed to be immortal. I thought I felt bad when we discovered Tony had been taken, and I'm not going to pretend that left me broken, but this felt so much worse. Of course, I cared more for Tony than anyone else (not that there were many people in this time that I cared for), but there was hope of saving him Tony. He hadn't been pronounced dead. Thor most definitely had.

The worst thing being that I felt like Thor's death was my fault.

"I just- I thought he was immortal. The only thing I kept thinking about was 'What if Tony'. I didn't even worry about _him. _I've never felt guiltier." Pepper reached out and massaged my hand.

"We all thought he was immortal." Natasha supplied, putting some hot choco in front of my face, which was pressed onto the table. "Turns out Asgardians are just able to live for a long time because of some sort of golden apples." She was going for mocking, but she sounded a bit sentimental. "Please stop blaming yourself, Steve. He went willingly. I'm sure, knowing him, he was proud to know that he died trying to save Tony."

"Except he didn't." I gritted out, anger and guilt fighting for dominance.

"How is Jane doing? Is she dealing?" Pepper asked. She and Jane had befriended each other, having a lot in common (Pepper could complain about Tony permanently putting his life on the line, and in turn Jane could spent hours scolding Thor because he had been at a different solar system for too long). Just as Pepper asked it, a red-eyed, wet cheeked and trembling Jane walked into the room. Pepper immediately shoved her chair back to give Jane the biggest tackle-hug in history. I turned around in my chair and looked at her with what I hoped to be a carefully measured amount of pity. The look I got in return was one of immense anger. I recoiled away immediately turning back around and facing Natasha with raised eyebrows. She looked at me questioning, and I waved it off. 'Later' I mouthed.

What I didn't know was that later, would have to wait.

* * *

"He was holding something? Why didn't anyone notice this?"

"Well sorry, captain, you were the one squeezing him into your chest, maybe you should have seen it."

"Girls!" Natasha sighed, putting some distance between Clint and me. "We are all devastated about Thor's life having been taken. And we can think about that later. All we have to do now is get to Amsterdam, and save Tony. Before it is too fucking late. We have never been the best of teams. Especially with Thor and Tony missing, we lack the dynamic that once kept us together. But can these shenanigans please wait until we are done? We need to save him Steve. We need to." I hung my head, feeling the frustration slowly ebb away, and I couldn't even remember why I was angry to begin with.

"'m Sorry, Clint."

"Me too." He said, and we shared a brotherly sort of hug in front of a satisfied Natasha.

After actually having accepted the fact that, indeed, Thor wasn't there anymore (we hadn't quite accepted it, and there were lots of talking sessions, psychologist visits and mourning periods we still would have to go through, but we couldn't allow ourselves to be distracted yet) we had Bruce have a go at examining his body. It turned out that Thor's journey that lead to his death hadn't been futile.

No, despite coming back lifeless, the God had managed to retrieve something from Titan. This, presumably, meant that what had caused his death had not been Thanos or his minions, but Tony's machine which would devastate Tony. Knowing him, he would never trust himself again, which sucked.

Anyhow, what Thor had brought back a watch. A watch with 6 slots, one for each gem, or so Natasha said after ordering JARVIS to get every piece of information out there about the infinity gauntlet- and gems. This watch could split all the gems and give them a separate power, so that the powers could be divided over multiple people instead of all being in the hands of one person. Too much power in the hands of one person had always led to wars, and it was up to us to break the tradition of years of war over the gauntlet.

"Steve, you are going to be the one to do it." Natasha told me, handing me the golden watch. "Make sure you don't lose it." When I started to protest, she quickly continued, "I know you lose your keys every other day, Steve. How many times has Tony had to give you a new Stark-pass? Be careful, today isn't the time to leave your keys in your bike and run around like a headless chicken until you find them." I nodded, swallowing my snide comment because I knew she was just making sure I was alert despite knowing that Tony's safety was on the line here.

Even after all the troubles Fury and the team had gone through throughout this thing with Loki, and even though he hadn't been very cooperative up until now, he was willing to lend us one of his planes (which Clint knew how to fly) to save Tony. If I was honest with myself, which I normally was, I thought it was the least he could do after having us figure this all out on our own.

So we were now seated cosily in the plane, Clint flying us towards the main port Schiphol in Amsterdam. It wasn't long (or maybe I was just not willing to admit that I had fallen asleep) before we were flying over a quilt of farmland, which could only mean that we had arrived in the Netherlands. Natasha was lazily pointing out windmills and other Dutch clichés, which I knew was a trait of here when she was trying to hide her nerves. I myself was tapping my foot on the ground impatiently, spandex uniform feeling weird and uncompleted without the shield. I had taken the prototype, had managed to save it from the rumble that used to be the Stark Tower, but it would never match up to the completed shield. I wanted to get there and kick some reindeer ass. As if Natasha felt my misplaced enthusiasm (misplaced because violence is never a good thing), she put a hand in on my leg, stilling my tappings and she looked at me.

"Steve, stay focused on your goal. You are going to have to get those gems, Hulk, Barton and I will take care of Loki. He has had Tony for a month, you don't know what Tony will be like. I want you to pay attention to that _later._ Don't let your anger for Loki distract you from the task at hand. Please."

"I won't," I said, hopping out of the plane, followed by Clint, Natasha and Bruce (who was wearing old clothes as a precaution). Loki had given us subtle hints of where exactly he was, using his magic to give us a sense of direction towards him.

And even though Natasha had warned me, twice, to stay focused, to not let my anger distract me, and even though I knew nothing good could come from it, the moment we found the right building and walked in to find Loki sitting on a make-shift throne with a wounded Tony kneeling in front of him, there was nothing restraining me from wiping the arrogant grin of Loki's face. It was probably what Loki had planned, to make me furious enough to get this reaction out of me, and I hated myself for falling for it, but I had never felt angrier about anything in my life.

Despite the yells from my team-members, the neutral expression on Loki's face and my own mind's objections, I lunged forward to knock the damn reindeer off his throne.

It was time that this stopped.

**[A/N The moment you have all been waiting for is coming soon! SCHOOL IS OVER AND I WILL START UPDATING QUICKER AGAIN!]**


	26. Chapter 26

**[A/N thank you for the wonderful reviews. And sorry for the late if non-existent replies. Know that I still read every single one of them even if I can't find the time to reply.]**

Part 26.

The windows of the building were all covered in red, and if possible, this only fuelled my anger more. As I had learned, red curtains, paint or cello-tape on a window meant prostitution, especially in this part of Amsterdam. Did that mean that… Was Loki seriously capable of doing something so awful to Tony? What was I even thinking, of course he was. I could only hope he hadn't.

Tony was sitting on his knees, the characteristic tank top he had left in a month ago filthy and clinging to his blood stained back. There were cuts in the tank top, with blood oozing from wounds that seemed to have healed and then been re-opened multiple times. He was facing Loki, his back directly to us, and didn't seem to have noticed us. I knew it had to be Tony, but he looked so broken that I wouldn't believe it until I would see his face. Maybe he would look so different that that would only make it worse.

Loki was giving us his trade-mark grin, and it made me so angry to see him sitting there, with my boyfriend all broken in front of him while knowing that he had been the indirect cause of Thor's dead. And oh- if all that wasn't enough, that shiny object laying behind him had to be my shield. He was doing it expressly, making me so angry that I wouldn't be able to focus on getting those damned gems. Loki had it all planned out, because he was so damn smart, and it was extremely irritating to come up with a plan to later discover someone had been way ahead of you.

He had known that I was going to be the one to get the gems. Of course he knew Natasha and Clint, as regular humans (regular as in, not supernatural. Although both were, of course, very exceptional human beings), would never be able to come close enough to Loki to get the gauntlet and split the gems. Hulk would be too far gone and wouldn't know what he would have to do. Thor- wait, why didn't he take Thor into consideration?

Suddenly it fell into place. Tony's machine hadn't failed. Of course it hadn't. How could I even, for a second, doubt Tony's geniality? He would never have allowed us to touch something if he wasn't a hundred percent sure it worked. It had been Loki. He had messed with it.

"You tortured my boyfriend," I spat out, "You killed your _own_ brother?" I walked up to him menacingly, hearing the sounds of Bruce's Hulking behind me but blocking it out, "you don't deserve to live," I sneered, passing Tony (who was stuck on his knees and apparently not moving), and lunging forward to grasp Loki. He teleported away, to suddenly stand right behind me. I gasped in shock when his hand, gloved and all, made a punching motion in the direction of my face. I quickly ducked, rolling towards where my shield was laying and threw the prototype one away so that I could replace it with the real deal.

"Steve, the gems!" Natasha shouted from somewhere, and the watch felt heavy in my pocket. But then Loki targeted me with his gauntlet and muttered a spell, creating a green sort of lighting to shoot right at me. My immediate reflex was to reflect it with my shield, but when I saw that reflecting it would mean casting it in the direction of my poor, poor Tony, I chose for making another ninja-roll. Loki waved his hand again and a group of minions came walking through the door. Some distracting Natasha, a couple of more managing to get close to Clint and the rest distracting Hulk and leading him outside by firing massive amounts of bullets towards him.

I looked around and noticed that shit, I had done the wrong thing. They had _told_ me to not get distracted, that I should get the gauntlet while Hulk, Natasha and Clint were getting Loki, but I hadn't listened, and now I had gotten us in trouble. Especially when Loki's next target was Tony, and all my teammates were busy fighting off minions.

"I knew you'd fall for it." Loki said, "That's your weakness, captain. You always do what your heart says instead of your brain. Not that he is any better," He cocked his head in Tony's direction, "but at least he's got a brain to speak of." He smiled and held the gauntlet in place, directed at Tony, who was just sitting there quietly and seeming to accept whatever was in store for him. That was so un-Tony like. Rearranging faith to suit him, that was Tony. Not- this.

While Loki was going on about the brilliance of his plan, I was measuring the distance between Tony and me, trying to find out whether just maybe, I could make the jump in time and reflect Loki's beam at himself. Just as I was doing so, a roar sounded, and Hulk came barging back in, tossing a minion of Loki onto the reindeer himself, which caught Loki by surprise and had him fall to the ground. Natasha had finally freed herself from a bunch of them with some help from Clint.

I immediately ran to Tony to kneel beside him and put my shield up to protect us, starting to throw the watch at Natasha but she grabbed my arm before I had let go.

"Leave the gems, we've got to go. Let's go, come on." I nodded and picked Tony up, cradling his lithe form in my arms. Hulk had started smashing more onto Loki, apparently completely immune to his magical beams. He had been distracted long enough for Natasha, Clint and me to jump into a car that Fury had just planted there for us (God bless Fury and his, according to Tony not handily placed screens with which he could monitor us). Hulk looked at us to confirm we were off, and when he had his confirmation stopped his God-bashing to run away quickly, leaving the scene behind him just as we did by car. And Hulk would be OK, he would just run and swim to America and de-Hulk somewhere on the coast.

I should be happy. We had Tony back, Bruce would be fine. No more lives had been lost, and we could go home. But I had not yet inspected the damage on my dear Tony, Thor was dead, and Loki still had his gauntlet.

However, now was not the time to break down and cry like a baby, even though we had all been strong for days now to stay focused, and we all needed to have some sort of joined melt-down, I had to stay strong for just a little longer for Tony.

The car ride wasn't very pleasant, because Clint was driving like a maniac to get back to the airport for our S.H.I.E.L.D. plane that would get us back to America. When we were finally, _finally,_ peacefully in the spacious plane, I quickly laid Tony down on the couch. Apparently, Fury had taken the precaution of hiring somebody else to fly us there so that Clint wouldn't have to steer anymore planes today.

I carefully draped a now asleep Tony over the couch, starting to strip him off his clothes. The Arc Reactor was still working and in place, thank God, glowing brightly and washing relieve over me. At least I wouldn't have to call Pepper for her small hands. I was trying to cause as less discomfort for him as possible, but this was practically impossible has the fabric of his shirt had started clinging to his wounds. I gently rolled him onto his side, so that I would be able to remove the tank top entirely, and inspected the scars on his back.

It was bad, but nothing that wouldn't heal within a few weeks. Hopefully nothing permanent, either. Natasha seemed to have concluded the same: Tony life wasn't in danger anymore. She allowed herself to collapse on the floor, throwing her med kit towards me and all her knifes next to her on the ground. Clint sighed in relieve just like me and dropped himself on the floor, bow by his feet.

I was afraid of what I might find when I removed his trousers, scary that somehow whatever I would find would show that he had indeed been used. So I was semi-relieved when a hand quickly reached out and grasped my wrist when I reached the hem of his trousers. I was also afraid that this meant that whatever was hidden there, was something Tony didn't want me to see. He had woken up.

"Steve," He croaked out, mouth barely moving, then really focusing on me and somehow producing a smile, "Want to safe that for a special time. No peeking," He said, and I was so, so happy to see that something of the old Tony was still there, even though I was not buying his 'no peeking' story. That would have to wait.

Tony was safe, Tony was here. And that was all that could possibly matter. So I smiled back at him, reassured him that I would leave everything else in place and bandaged up his back. He seemed relieved but still in shock. I moved him slightly so that I could lay behind him, wrapping my arms around him and deciding that I would never, ever let him go again.

"Don't leave," He whispered, before his breathing evened out again, and he fell asleep against my chest. To sleep through the rest of the plane ride.

**[A/N finally, Tony is back. FINALLY. The first part of the story is almost finished, the sequel soon starting!:) I'm running way ahead of things. Still tons of chapters to come, no worries. Just wanted to say that I love you xD]**


	27. Chapter 27

**[A/N As a reviewer already said, last chapter was full of mistakes. I apologize, I was too eager to upload it. ;_; This is not going to be one of those laying in hospital and cuddle with my boyfriend in my bed and flustered nurses fanfictions, js]**

Part 27.

The scariest moments of my life weren't during the second world war, when I could be about to be blown up any moment. It wasn't when I saw bucky fall to his death, even if I thought that would be haunting me forever. Not even when I fell into freezing cold water and got frozen alive. Ironically enough, the scariest moments of my life were when I was perfectly fine, cosily in a control room of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Where is he, is he OK?" I asked as soon as Fury walked in with his oh-so-comforting stance. Fury is _just_ what you need when the love of your life is dying somewhere on a hospital bed. When on our way back to America, the pilot had taken us straight to Fury's infamous headquarters. Under normal circumstances, we would have started a riot because Fury was trying to control our lives again, but we knew that we wouldn't be able to give Tony the medical care he deserved and needed, and they could. I mean, my pre-technologic-evolution techniques weren't exactly up to date.

"It's better if you see for yourself." Fury was being tactful, which he rarely was, and this meant that there was really something serious going on. "You can talk to him, he is conscious. Please don't overwhelm him, Rogers." He paused, "You were right, every single one of you is important. I saw your fighting, the 4 of you, without Tony and Thor. It was.. different, less coordinated." I wondered what he was trying to say, whether he was trying to make me feel better or not.

It wasn't helping either way, because Thor was gone, dead, I had felt his last heartbeat myself, and the dynamic would never be restored again.

* * *

"Tony?" I asked softly, sitting myself down on a chair next to him. He grunted something out and scrunched his face up in pain when he turned around to face me.

"Fuck."

"It's good to see you too," I smiled softly, but my smile quickly faltered and I looked away. I didn't want to break the news about Thor yet, but I knew that Tony would ask about everything that had happened during his absence soon enough. "Are you feeling OK?" I asked, taking one of his hands between mine. They had washed him, and the hand that was once bloody and dirty was now softer than it would have been had he been working in his workshop for a while.

"'m okay." He said quietly, not going for a snarky 'of course not, do you see the blood on my back, the scratches on my head, etc', but for an uncertain and not very convincing 'ok'. That worried me more than it should have.

"Tony.." I leaned down, just going for a soft kiss, but he turned his head away before my lips reached his.

"Please don't." He mumbled. When he looked up at me and saw the look I was giving him, he seemed to realize that he was acting strange, and quickly tried covering it up, "I just uh- " He stared at me and I didn't know what to say. I could only imagine what had gone on in Amsterdam, could only guess what had driven Tony's flame for intercourse into a dull light.

"You don't have to lie, it's OK, Tony." I said, squeezing his hand between mine. I was surprised to see a tear roll down Tony's cheek, as he looked at me helplessly and began to shake all over. The last time I had seen Tony cry was when he told me about his father, when we were trying to figure out what was it that made us fight so often, and he hadn't really been crying then. Just looking for comfort, not crying.

This was the real nervous break-down type of crying that had him shaking and squeezing my hand to death. I wanted to know what had happened, to get it out of him, to know what Loki had done so that next time I saw him, I could do everything back twice as hard. Avenge Thor. Oh God, Thor. I suddenly couldn't keep the tears in either, and every emotion that I had ignored, every emotion that had been building up since this all started, felt the need to express itself.

"I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head and putting it onto his chest, feeling his and my sobs go through his entire body. Everything that had happened, from the moment I realized I liked men, to the moment I was reunited with him who had made me realize this. Tony's sudden disappearance, Bruce getting buried alive, Thor's death, the state we found Tony in. All this time I had kept my tears to myself, but it was getting too much.

"Wh- Why? He asked softly, chest rising and falling with exertion, and it was so good to feel the life beating under his ribcage, knowing that he was going to be OK… physically. I dried my tears with my sleeve, our hands still linked together.

"For everything. So much has happened.. I don't even know where to start.." I shuffled on my seat a bit, wiggling around nervously. "I shouldn't have let you go to start with. Now look what he made of you.." I brought our hands up to trace my finger over his cheek, stopping to press my thumb on his lip, and he quivered a bit, looking away. "That's not the Tony I know."

"I don't want to talk about it." Not talking was an offer Tony Stark had never before made in his life, but I decided to go with it because frankly, I didn't think I was up for talking yet. I nodded, a thousand questions still spinning through my mind. The most prominent by far being how the hell I was going to get _my _Tony back. I wanted my playboy, etc. Not some sort of shadow of the guy he used to be.

"I love you." I said, before resting my head on the mattress next to his shoulder, sitting at an awkward angle with most of my body still in the chair. Tony mumbled something back, as if he was already falling asleep, but when I took a look at his face to check, it seemed like he was just staring into the darkness. Staring at something that wasn't there. "Tony," I said, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him a bit, and he blinked a few times before looking back at me.

"Yes, yes I know." He answered, then turned onto his side, back facing me, and I was left with the feeling that I had done something utterly, extremely bad. Sighing, I clapped Tony on his back, worrying more than ever that something bad was going on, and that he was using his self-destructive suffer in silence techniques to solve it again.

* * *

When Tony's breathing had evened out, I decided I could leave him alone for a while to call Pepper and tell her what was going on. She answered with a hyper 'Steve!', as usual. I quickly laid out the situation for her, telling her about the circumstances under which we found him and his physical condition.

"And uhm, have you got any idea what he's gone through?" She asked uncertainly.

"No, he won't tell me. I think I might have an idea. He..He doesn't let me touch him anymore." I heard her swallow,

"No.. You don't really think..?" When I fell quiet, she let out a puff of air. "Oh- Okay. Give him time Steve. Please, don't take offense in anything he does. It's his way of recovering. Just be there for him, give him the feeling that he isn't alone. Even if he doesn't admit it, Tony doesn't do 'alone' very well. Steve, I just-" I heard her sniffle a little bit, "Be there for him the way that I couldn't be. Please, don't leave him alone, not now."

"I wasn't planning on."

"No, Steve, I'm serious. He might start acting in ways that make you want to pull your hair out, or throw him out the window, or just walk away and leave him in his misery. When he came back from Afghanistan he was- He tried acting normal at first. Repressed his feelings. He acted like nothing had happened. Until all the press had stopped paying attention to him, and he was finally able to stop keeping up appearances. He broke down, Steve, and I didn't know how to help him. Please make sure you don't make the same mistakes I did." She said, and before I was able to process what she had said, much less produce a proper answer, she had hung up.

That wasn't a big responsibility at all. Nope. Not. At. All.

**COOL STUFF: there is now a deviantart linked to my fanfiction account! Every piece of art related to this story will be posted on there! Lots of drawings and stuff to come, please check it out! The link is on my profile, and the username is ´FanficDelivery´ just like on here. Also, ´Your loyal delivery lady´, is my new tag line. Pretty cool, huh. Alright. peace out.**

**[A/N oh.. poor Tony. Tell me what you're thinking. I love hearing your thoughts on what's going on.]**


	28. Chapter 28

**[A/N Guys! The rating changed to M! *whistles* Don't worry, I'm not the kind to write 'and I moaned when he rubbed here and there'-stuff. I think that's over-used and stupid, sorry if I'm offending anyone :c I'm doing it my own way xD This was one of those chapters I had to write 5 times before it was OK]**

Part 28

TONY POV

My wounds had healed, and my back had stopped hurting. I could even lay on my back and wiggle without receiving an unwelcome amount of pain. So Fury's nurses thought it was time I was transferred to a normal (as far as normal goes at S.H.I.E.L.D.) room in normal clothes. I was spread out on my king-size bed, enjoying smelling something that was not hospital.

I crooked an eye open, hearing the creaking sound of a door being opened. It was late at night, but I hadn't been able to sleep. Not with the pained look Steve had given me and the knowledge that I'd hurt him.

"Speaking of the devil" I murmured when I saw a mop of golden hair peak into my range of view.

"What, who was talking about me?" Steve asked, walking up to me, and I face-palmed.

"You weren't supposed to hear that. Stupid serum." _But then again, where would that ass be if not for the serum?_ I added mentally, not voicing it, afraid that I'd scare him away like Loki told me I would. Steve frowned at me, as If he could see the words laying on my tongue. He sat down beside me, and despite not really being a people-person, I could read the determination on his face.

"I want us to be 'us' again. Please Tony, let me in, tell me what he did to you." At any other time, I would have made a witty comment about letting Steve 'in', but I bit my tongue.

"It's nothing he did. I've been tortured before, you know." I said instead, averting my gaze from his piercing blue eyes.

"Yes, Pepper told me how well you recovered from that." Steve rolled his eyes. I ignored what he'd said, not knowing how to answer, afraid that a list of profanities towards Pepper might come tumbling out. I didn't even ask why Steve and Pepper were even talking, because _of course_ he would have called her to know how to handle a sulky Tony.

"You wouldn't understand anyway." I mumbled. Steve slammed his fist on my bedside table and I jumped, almost throwing the glass of water I'd been holding over myself.

"Why do you always act so helplessly misunderstood?" He half-shouted. "I'm trying to help you, to make you feel better." He paused for a while, hanging his head, "To get you back."

"What, you are trying to get _me_ back?" I shouted back, "You've had me Steve, always. It's never been you trying to get me, Steve, no. I feel so stupid for not realizing that before, for having to hear it from Loki before I understood. It has always been me trying to get you. And now I realize why. There is no reason for you to like me. None at all. I'm a disrespecting, permanently drunk, scarred asshole. What is there to like about me? Looks? Money? Those are qualities somebody with your reputation and name could get anywhere. Not to speak of your own incredible body."

"That's what Loki told you, is it." Steve looked at me incredulously, making me scoot over so that he could sit down next to me. "He kept telling you that there was no way for someone like me to ever fall in love with someone like you until you believed it, didn't he? Tony.." My name fell from his lips like it was something breakable, something he handled with care, "Let me tell you just what I love about you…

I love how sassy you are, I adore your witty comments that could cheer anyone up in any situation. I can't get enough time staring at you while you work in your workshop, passion so evident in everything you do. The way you are prepared to offer yourself up any time, the way you are prepared to be patient with me despite all _my _flaws. Tony.." He swiped away a tear that I was scolding for running down my cheek without permission, "There is nothing, no one in this world that I could possibly love more than you."

"I'm scarred, I'm ugly I-" I said uncertainly, thinking of everything Loki had said, the arguments that had seemed so valid.

"Let me prove it to you. Let me love you" He whispered, lips hovering over mine. He paused, waiting for permission, and I had a small moment of triumph that the roles were reversed for once. I turned his words over in my head again and again, urging them to make sense, to make myself believe them. What was there to lose, really? I leaned up, pressing my lips against his and cursing every single tear (even _I_ didn't know enough profanities to curse them all) that dared to escape.

"_Let me prove it to you_" Steve repeated, his body hovering over mine as his fingers were hesitantly waiting for permission to lift my shirt up. I nodded, capturing his lips in another kiss as he started undressing me. We needed connection. We needed proof because this relationship had been so unrealistic to start with.

Never had I thought that I could receive so much pleasure through such a primitive action, nor through giving myself up to a man. Nevertheless I closed my eyes, trying to lose the weird and unsettling feeling this new form of intercourse brought and concentrating purely on the connection between Steve and me, his wonderful grunts of enjoyment and the knowledge that I was the only one to ever see him in this state of pure and shameless ecstasy.

There was sweat forming on my brow, partly from the exertion it took, getting rocked into the mattress and clinging onto my lover´s muscled shoulders, and partly from the small but quite prominent amount of pain Steve was causing me. He could see the discomfort on my face, so he carefully lifted my legs from where I had positioned them on the bed to wrap them around his waist.

"Better?" He asked, slowing his thrusts and watching me closely. I nodded, pulling him down by his neck to kiss him, distracting myself from the burning sensation every movement was causing me. Steve was gazing at my face intently, searching it for the emotions it was holding.

"Are you OK?" He panted out between the needy outlets of air. I just gave him a sort of acknowledging sound , afraid that whatever might come out of my mouth instead would be a grunt or scream of pain, which Steve might interpret as a cue to stop, while all I wanted was this connection to last, the pain to subside and the pleasure to remain. Slowly but surely, I was getting used to the feeling until finally, the pain that had seemed so bad before, had now gone back to being a little nagging feeling that could easily be ignored.

I think I visibly relaxed, because Steve smiled before burying his head in my neck to leave hot puffs of air behind every time he exhaled. Being taken was a whole new sort of intimacy that I had never considered before, but now that I knew the intensity of it, I also knew it was an experience worth repeating. I threw my head back against the pillow, grabbing fistfuls of it in a futile attempt to contain a moan.

"Oh dear- Jesus Fuck" I rambled, holding onto him as his movements became more erratic, his touches less coordinated. I held onto his torso, afraid that if I didn't, I would lose myself completely in the overwhelming amount of feelings I was being exposed to. With unpractised techniques, he slowly drove us into completion, until we were both in a state of bliss that nothing previously experienced could match up to.

With a soft groan, Steve fell onto the bed next to me.

"Oh my God." He said, hand roaming over the surface until it found mine. I mumbled my agreement, stretching out my limbs and feeling all the places on which Steve had pressed a little too hard and maybe forgotten that I was a feeble human, and of course my backside which had an unpleasant ache in it. There were blue finger-formed bruises on my hips and my ankle from where he'd grabbed me, a bite-mark on my neck from where he'd marked me.

"That doesn't look too good." I said with a smile when I got my breath back. Steve rolled onto his side, facing me, and his eyes roamed over my sweaty limbs uncertainly. He tentatively reached out and brushed his fingertips over the sore spots.

"I hurt you." He concluded, sitting up to grab the blanket from where it was laying discarded at our feet. He skilfully threw the blanket over us, then proceeded to drape and arm over me and pull me into his chest. I winced, every movement causing my backside to sting uncomfortably. "I'm so, so sorry, Tony. I- I didn't do it properly did I? I'm such a failure. It'll be better next time I promise. If there is a next time I- I mean I don't mean that you have t-" he rambled on and I shushed him, putting my index finger against his lips.

"Steve. Shush. It was inevitable. Are you afraid I didn't enjoy myself? Trust me, that's the least of your worries. I think the only thing you should be worried about is the damage you did to my ego. I thought I was good in bed… but for a rookie, you were pretty damn amazing." Steve looked dubious, so I added, "Yes, it hurt. It's supposed to. But I just had one of the most amazing nights of my life, whether you believe it or not."

"One of the?" Steve countered playfully.

"Now don't get too sassy, you're stealing my good traits." We were going for the 'romantic drifting off to sleep in each other's arms'-thing you always see in movies, but after a few minutes I realized that wasn't going to happen. "OK, let's take a shower, I can still feel shit leaking out of my ass."

"God, thought you'd never ask." Steve answered, following my limping self into the bathroom.

**[A/N ;_; emotions.]**


	29. Chapter 29

**[A/N ehhehe. 'Tony', who in this case isn't our beloved main character, but my laptop (I named it after Tony, and my mouse is Steve, and connected by USB, so Steve is always 'in' Tony), hasn't been turned off (he's turned ON.. heheeh. OK, I'll stop.) in the past couple of days because I have been so busy with Stark Spangled and everything that came with it. Thank you guys so much for everything ^^]**

Part 29

I half walked, half limped into the common S.H.I.E.L.D. dining area, where all the agents were looking strangely domestic while drinking their fruit juices and eating their toasts. I sat down next to Clint with a jolt of pain shooting up my back.

"What crawled up your ass and bit you?" He asked, unaware of the amazing pun he'd just made. I narrowed my gaze and glanced sideways at the goofy-looking Steve who was chatting animatedly with Natasha. He was looking thoroughly fucked and deflowered and grinning like a madman. Clint followed my gaze uncertainly. "Nooooo, really?"

"Yes." I said grimly, while secretly, I was having a hard time suppressing my own satisfied smirk. Clint lowered his gaze until it landed on the intensely prominent crotch of Steve, who was wearing puhritty tight jeans.

"You had _that_ monster up your ass?"

"Why do you think I'm limping. Besides, it wasn't _exactly_ planned. The guy just topped me like it was nobody's business. I suppose I should change the password.. he is definitely not Steve The Virgin anymore, for your information." I answered, scanning the dining room as if food would appear in front of me. I groaned when I saw there was an actual food-court look-a-like where you had to get your own food. "They are making me walk to get food? In this state?" Steve crouched down next to me then, kissing me on the lips spontaneously like he usually never did in public.

"I will get you some food, OK?" He said, stretching out before making his way to the food court in a gay and jumping matter. I turned around to look at Clint with a smirk.

"Yup, he does that now." I told him. Bruce came around too, sitting opposite of Clint and me, while Natasha and Steve were getting food for us.

"Hey, did you hear, Tony got laid last night." Clint whistled as way of greeting Bruce. Bruce grimaced at us before placing his laptop down on the table.

"Yes, I most definitely heard. Literally. I was in the room next to them." Bruce looked at me, considering. "Next time you plan on going at it, keep your screams to yourself. It almost made me Hulk out." He said, but he did give me a tiny smile, which meant that all was well. Everything seemed to be good (apart from the fact that there was still a maniac with a deathly weapon in our midst). After waiting a few minutes, I started drumming my fingers on the table impatiently, looking around to see if I could spot Steve or Natasha anywhere. Hmm. Nowhere to be seen. Suspicious.

"I'm eh, just, getting some food." I mumbled at Bruce and Clint, who were talking about God knows what and not paying attention to me anyway. Clint waved a hand at me, distracted by whatever Bruce was saying and not even noticing that I had complained about having to walk just a moment ago.

Curiously, I walked over to one of the counters, behind which a man was standing, ready to hand me cooked potatoes if I so desired. He was looking strangely muscular and scary for somebody who handed people potatoes for a job. I coughed loudly, and the man in question looked up from his pan, raising an eyebrow.

"Have you maybe seen Captain American skipping about?" The man grinned as if he knew exactly what the 'skipping' part had been about, then pointed in the direction of a suspicious looking hallway. I wished I had JARVIS with me to tell me where the hell Steve was, but Loki had destroyed the watch I had been wearing at the time of my kidnapping. I had planned on getting a few of my gadgets from my workshop as soon as I was released by those damn nurses, but I had been… unintentionally otherwise occupied.

I found Natasha and Steve in a room, cosily chatting their heads off while I was waiting for my food. Curious, I pressed myself against the wall out of their range of view to hear what they were saying.

"I don't know how to deal with it." Steve sounded worried, and I was immensely pissed that whatever he was talking about, was something he couldn't discuss with _me._ His so called lover.

"Steve, none of us do. We will find a way, eventually." A pause ensued. "The erhm.. The funeral is tomorrow. They decided to do it on Earth because this planet had become his home over the last few months." Funeral?

"I don't know if I can handle it. Seeing him lying there. The once mighty God now fallen, cold, lifeless…" .. Loki hadn't died when they came to save me, had he. So what- No. Why would they not have told me such a thing. It couldn't be true, could it? Steve and his always present moral principles would have told me. But while trying to remember when the last time was that I'd seen Thor, I realized that I hadn't seen him since I was abducted. The realization hit me so hard that I fell to the ground without my body protesting against it.

Thor. I could hardly believe it. He was a God, and last time I checked, these don't die. Apparently, the fist that I slammed against the wall made enough noise for Steve and Natasha to poke their head out the door to see what was happening. And before I could stare into Steve's shocked eyes for too long, I quickly ran away towards the nearest bathroom, locking myself in. I sat down on the floor, back resting against the door and head resting on my knees.

"Tony?" There was a soft knock on the door, followed by Steve's voice. I didn't know why, and how it happened, but quite an amount of sobs suddenly heaved my body, and I desperately tried to keep my tears and sounds to myself. "Tony, baby, please don't cry.."

"I'm not crying." I shot back, displeased that my voice wasn't as steady as I hoped it would be, and that I was being called a baby.

"Would you let me in and explain myself? I think I kind of deserved that after saving you." He knocked a few times, but after a minute just gave up, and I heard him slid down the door and land on the ground with a thud.

"What, so you can try to cover up more stuff?" I asked.

"I was just trying to protect you." He answered, and that did it.

"Oh, and look how well it worked out, huh! Do you know how much it hurts to know that you made love to me while hiding something so freaking big? We could have talked about it, we could have mourned together. But now you and the others have already started and I will end up doing everything _alone_. And contrary to popular believe, I do not always like to do thing alone, Steve." Steve didn't answer, but after a few minutes, I felt something prod at my ass. I moved away to see a piece of paper shoved through the little bit op space between the door and the ground.

There was a drawing on it, of me laying on the bed without clothes. Written above it, in a strangely female handwriting, was 'This is how I saw you. Now tell me how to refuse that on my best day'. Despite all the frustrations, this made me smile.

"Too shy to say it out loud, are you."

"Nah, words just can't describe h-"

"Shut up." I said before he could try to distract me any further. "I want to come to the funeral." I said.

"So let me in, so we can talk."

"I'm too frustrated. I want to kill that reindeer son of a fucking bitch. And honestly, right now, I'd like to send you flying to Asgard with him."

"You know, Tony. 70 years ago, when I was in the army, my best friend Bucky died. There was really nothing like losing my best friend like that. But then, when I woke up 70 years later, I realized that I had lost Peggy too, in a way. I thought that was even worse. Then Thor died and I thought- OK, now I've encountered about every disaster possible.

And when I saw you, broken, sad, hurt.. When I saw how insecure you had suddenly become.. There was nothing else that I wanted to do than cheer you up, show you how much I really do love you. I didn't want you to feel the way I did when I lost Bucky. I wanted you to feel loved and happy. I'm sorry it didn't turn out the way I'd hoped."

"I'm sad." I concluded.

"Yes. So let me make you feel better."

"Oh, no, don't even go there. That won't work twice, you know." I answered. Steve slammed his head against the door, making it tremble slightly.

"That's not what I was suggesting. Hey Tony?"

"Hmm?"

"I never actually learned to dance. Peggy was going to teach me, but.. well."

"You want to dance, to make me feel better?" I asked, standing up and resting my hand on the doorknob. Steve made a sound of confirmation, and I unlocked the door. "Alright." I said, trying to open the door but not succeeding with Steve still sitting against it. "If you will let me open the fucking door." I added, and when he was finally standing in front of me, I fell into his waiting arms for a hug that promised everything would be alright in the end.

**[A/N Sorry it's taken so long. I was drawing. I can't actually draw, and my tablet is crappy, and is definitely not where you want to be drawing. Anyhow, there is some Steve x Tony on my deviart. I HAD posted a link.. with spaces inbetween, but WELL. .]  
**


	30. Chapter 30

**[A/N I had a bad case of LOST addiction, and I bought Adam's new album 'Trespassing', AND season 3 of TrueBlood. Apologies. I took some time for this because it's tha… finaleeeee! Also, somebody said that they felt Tony's reaction towards Thor's death was a little.. off. Well.. you'll see.]**

Part 30.

"Your bow tie.. it's uhm, a bit crooked." Steve mumbled, coming to stand behind me and resting his hands on my shoulders. I looked at him through the mirror that I had been staring at for a while now. He had bags under his eyes to join mine, and even though he'd tried, the tear tracks on his cheeks hadn't been washed away properly. He moved his hands over my shoulders until they reached the black silk that was tied around my neck.

"Thanks," I mumbled, lump in my throat. When he deemed my bow tie appropriate, he turned me around and looked into my eyes for a long time.

"You don't have to do this." I looked away from him.

"Who says I don't want to?" I answered, giving him a tiny smile and ushering him out the door. "Just give me a couple of minutes." I closed the door behind him and quickly pressed my back against it, breathing in deeply. My fingers were trembling when I reached into my coat-pocket to retrieve what was going to help me get through this day. Through Thor's funeral.

I held it in my hands, staring at it in case my conscious would suddenly step in and take it away from me. I wiped some sweat from my forehead, looking around me to make sure that I was alone, which might have been a bit paranoid considering I was in the bathroom preparing for a fucking funeral. I ignored the tears that had started streaming down my face and quickly opened the little plastic bag. Just this once, I told myself. Just to feel better.

"This ought to do the job. No more than that." I said out loud, tracing my finger through the white powder that I had so carefully spread out across my palm. I threw my head back against the door in a last attempt to stop myself, perhaps waiting for somebody to shout at me not to do it.

When no sign came, when there was nobody that thought I ought to stop this, no one in the world that could give a fuck whether I continued or not, the decision was made.

* * *

I realized I was too late as soon as I opened my eyes and found myself laying on the floor of the car that had brought me to the place of Thor's burial. Just in my field of vision was the left-over cocaine I'd dropped when I climbed into the car feeling all gooey and relaxed.

"You awake, bud?" The driver turned around and looked at me. "'m pretty sure you missed the ceremony. Your husband was pretty upset."

"Husband?" I mumbled, wiping my mouth clean of drool.

"Yes. Captain America, you know. The guy that was all over the news because he saved you? Now get out of my car, I don't need some junkie drooling all over the floor. Even if it's Iron Man." He got up from behind the steering wheel, and it took me a while to figure out that he was actually going to drag me out of the limo.

"Hey, easy." I said, getting up and pushing him away from me. "I can walk on my own, thank you." I spat, which turned out to be only partly correct as I stumbled away towards the group of people standing around Thor's grave. Almost everybody had already left. Only my team-members and Jane were still standing there, mumbling stuff and repressing tears. When Steve's eyes landed on me, he immediately strode towards me with a frown on his face.

"Where were you?" He whisper-shouted at me, his back to the rest of the group. "You missed the entire ceremony! Jane gave a talked about their love, and his life. Bruce said something about their freindship. And Fury stepped up to give a little speech, because _you _weren't there to do it!" He clutched at my shoulders and shook me around a bit, and I looked at him sheepishly. "Even Loki was present."

"'m sorry." I mumbled, trying to focus on one thing, but not succeeding with my blurry vision.

"You are sorry? I needed you, Tony!" He looked at me for a while, searching my eyes, "Are you on _drugs?"_ He finally shouted. "Unbelievable. He died to protect you, Tony, to save you! Without him, you wouldn't even be here and you can't even master up the strength to show up at his sodding funeral! Are you insane, Tony? I needed you, and you were just getting your fucking fix somewhere. You are unbelievable."

"Oh, don't try to guilt-trap me, Steve. I wasn't the one that put him in the fucking machine."

"He died to save his friends, Tony. That's how he chose it."

"You talk about honour, and saving his friends, like it was all his fucking plan. Like he wanted it. Let me tell you Steve," I looked up at him, eyes narrowing and finger poking into his chest. "Nobody ever chooses death." I spat. Steve took a step away from me, eyes wide and jaw set.

"How dare you?" Steve gave me such a sharp punch against my jaw that you'd think the pain would have snapped me out of it, but it didn't, and resulted into me going into a fit of giggles.

"Hey what's going on here?" Natasha yelled, grabbing Steve's fist just in time before it hit me in the stomach.

"How dare you pin this on me? You are a disgraceful git, Tony. Don't expect to hear from me until you come up to me _clean_." He growled, the only thing keeping him from attacking me Natasha, who was standing between us.

"Steve, let it go." Bruce said, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me away, "The man's broken. Cut him some slack. Especially after what _you_ did." He said to Steve, then turned me around to give me a serious look.

"Are you defending him?" Steve asked. The heavy rain that had started was now accompanied by some thunder, and everybody was soaked to the bone. There were droplets of rain falling from Steve's hair when he shook his head in disbelief.

"He's your boyfriend, man. Do you know what he's been through?" Bruce yelled back at him, putting an arm around my shoulders.

"Hey guys-"

"You think that's a good reason to-"

"That's not what I'm saying you-"

"_guys_?"

"Will you shut your mouth and let him explain himself?"

"GUYS!" Bruce, Natasha Steve and I looked at Clint, who was waving his arms and trying to get our attention. "If everybody would let Romeo and Juliet work out their own problems, there is kind of, eh. Movement. I think I might be hallucinating." Clint panted, shoving his wet hair backwards. We looked at him like he was crazy.

"What." Natasha said sceptically.

"Are you on drugs, too?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow and finally stopping his attempts to get past Natasha without hurting her. We slowly walked up to him and looked at the place where Thor had been buried minutes ago. With the 5 of us and Jane, we stared at the heap of dirt that Clint had sworn to see moving just now. Suddenly, without a warning, Jane let out the loudest shriek in the history of all horror and action movies, looking down, and everybody turned their heads to see what she was looking at.

A hand was firmly clasped around her ankle.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**Please read:**

**Now before anyone starts throwing tomatoes in my face, I am NOT resurrecting Thor. I'm not going to do some plot-less reincarnation or whatever.**

**Please do check out the sequel 'Iron Man with a Plan' that I will start on soon.**

**I will first rewrite the first 4 or so chapters from this story, because it started out as just something I did for the lulz. However, people actually started reading it, so I created a plot and started working on it with more attention and dedication. **

**Thank you for reading my story, reviewing, following, faveing…**

**Here are some questions regarding the sequel:**

** What the hell just happened, at the funeral?**

** What is going to happen with Tony and his drugs?**

** What about Loki and the gems, and hey, isn't Thanos going to be pissed because he still hasn't got his watch back, _nor_ his gauntlet?**


	31. Sequel!

**Dear Readers,**

Thank you for your patience and support.

The first part of Iron Man with a Plan has been uploaded. I´d really appreciate it if you checked it out. You can find the new story on my profile. I hope you will enjoy the new story and may the new chapters solve all your questions! :D

Sylvie


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